


Parachute

by syllogismos



Category: Cabin Pressure, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: (Canonical) Suicide, BAMF!John, Bisexual Character, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-03-25
Packaged: 2017-11-23 20:31:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syllogismos/pseuds/syllogismos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John meets a man-with-a-van who turns out to be a pilot, and they're an unexpectedly good match. Even Sherlock approves, or at least he does until he's gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. there we stand, about to fly

**Author's Note:**

>   * Not using the archive warnings simply because I couldn't decide if canonical (apparent) major character death warranted the "Major Character Death" warning. No deaths here except those that (appear to) happen in canon.
>   * For [a prompt on the meme](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/20063.html?thread=122475359#t122475359). Prompt boils down to: _Sherlock_ and _Cabin Pressure_ crossover with (1) fluffy John/Martin, (2) John and Martin meeting on one of Martin's van jobs, which happens to be moving Harry Watson from London to Fitton, and (3) the MJN crew meeting and being surprised and impressed by BAMF!Army-doctor!John. There's some angst too, because angst makes fluff _fluffier_.
>   * Chapter titles (and fic title) from Guster’s “Parachute” off the album of the same name.
>   * A case of Sherlock and John’s in this fic is ~~stolen~~ borrowed from the movie _Inside Man_ ; thus, there are spoilers here for that movie, although I don’t spoil its major reveal.
>   * Another situation is ~~stolen~~ borrowed from an episode of the TV series _Standoff_ , although I've changed many of the details.
>   * And I totally forgot to add this before, but many thanks are due to the lovelies (fellow writers and mods) at #antidiogenes for the word wars and the answered questions and the listening to me complain.
> 


**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin meets another Captain.

### London, 10th February, 8:56 a.m.

Under the circumstances, John’s happy to help. Post-The Woman, Sherlock’s still been a fright, sullen and withdrawn—sometimes even when they have a case, if the criminals in question haven’t been very clever (or clever at all). Jeanette’s long gone, and Sarah is still a friend, but it’s not fair to her, using her as an escape whenever Sherlock gets to be a bit too much.

And Harry is actually doing pretty well, sober for over a month now. Sherlock had been right about her relapse around Christmas, but he’d been wrong about its significance. Despite (or perhaps _because of_ ) the fact that he _is_ one, Sherlock doesn’t have a very good understanding of addicts and addiction, of the inevitability of relapse and the lifelong struggle for sobriety. John wasn’t upset when Harry relapsed at the holidays; he’d expected it, at least on some level. And now she’s doing better and taking steps to improve things further: new job, moving to a new city, leaving London and her triggering memories of Clara behind. So John is happy to help her move.

When the day comes, though—well, the timing could have been better. John’s running on the fumes of a scant two hours of sleep caught while slumped over on the sitting room table. He wakes up with a story about Japanese micro-flats from _The Guardian_ transferred to his cheek. Quick shower, cup of tea, and he’s almost awake. Sherlock is still poring over the bank’s safe deposit box records, looking for anomalies. He doesn’t notice when John leaves.

### Fitton, 10th February, 9:43 a.m.

Martin is likewise not in top form. The holidays are always a slow time for MJN, and there usually aren’t many van jobs either, so now he’s stretching his last penny and scheduling van jobs regardless of how closely they align with his flight schedule. Thus it happens that this morning he’s just in from Shanghai (and China might not be Russia, but it’s still stupidly, unnecessarily big). All he has time for before the job is a quick shower and a cup of tea.

His client is one Harry Watson, moving from London to Fitton. He pulls up to her building a few minutes late, but there’s no one waiting outside, just a rather short man in a black jacket approaching while frowning into a paper cup of coffee.

Martin finds the building’s call box and rings the client’s bell. “Icarus Removals for Harry Watson.”

“Yes, hello–” a woman answers. “I’ll be right down.”

The man with the coffee looks up, squints at Martin’s van and then looks Martin up and down. “ _Icarus_ Removals?!?”

Martin sighs and runs a hand through his already unruly hair. He considers not answering; he’s not in the mood for this sort of thing this morning, not after Douglas’ particularly relentless teasing on the return from Shanghai and not from some random bystander. But he answers (a bit testily) anyway, “It’s meant to be a joke, actually. Icarus-the-failed-pilot starts again with a new career as a man-with-a-van.”

The bystander is staring at Martin’s hands now, and then the door to the building opens, and a slight, blond-haired woman steps out. She’s about to greet Martin when she sees the man with the coffee and turns.

“John!”

“Sorry I’m a bit late, Harry.”

They embrace. “Sherlock?”

“Yeah, we’ve got a case. Or a consultation, really. An American thing with a bank robbery where nothing got stolen.”

“That sounds…interesting. Fill me in later?”

“Of course.”

Martin pulls at the cuffs of his jacket impatiently. The blond woman finally turns to him. “You must be Martin.”

“Yes, Martin Crieff. You’re Ms. Watson?”

“Harry, please. And this is my brother, John.”

Martin shakes John’s hand as well. John is—snarky questions about the name of his removals service aside—rather the type of man Martin always finds himself attracted to. Not a pretty boy, but a little bit weathered: a face with character. And he’s not too tall. This is a bonus, not a disadvantage; Martin can scarcely avoid dating men that are taller than him, but he prefers to at least date men that aren’t _towering_ over him. John also appears to be quite fit, has the look of a coiled spring, ready to snap into action as soon as something (or perhaps _someone_ ) finds his trigger.

Harry’s stepped back over the threshold into her building now, holding the door open for them. For a beat, Martin doesn’t notice.

John smirks. “Shall we, _Icarus_?”

“How did you know I actually am a pilot?” Martin asks as he follows Harry into the building.

“ _Failed_ pilot.”

“Not quite failed, actually. I fly for a charter company.”

“How is that ‘not quite failed’?”

“Oh, um, well, actually– Because I’m not _quite_ actually, um, _paid_ for it. It’s a hobby, I suppose you’d say.”

John pauses over the threshold, briefly distracted.

“But really–” Martin takes advantage of the pause. “How did you guess I’m a pilot?”

John recovers himself, steps in, and shuts the door behind him. Then he grins and says, “Your left thumb.”

### Fitton, 10th February, 4:22 p.m.

“Where do you want this last one?” Martin asks from around the edge of a large box.

Harry steps around a precise stack of boxes in the sitting room and examines the box Martin’s carrying. “Oh, that one goes in the kitchen, I think.”

Martin shuffles to the kitchen and sets it down gingerly. He flexes his hands, then reaches behind him to grab at the edge of the kitchen counter, twisting his torso. His spine gives off several loud pops, and he sighs in relief, then twists the other direction and grabs at the counter again to even out the stretch in his spine. His threadbare t-shirt rides up as he’s stretching and John, having just stepped into view of the kitchen, is transfixed by the slip of pale skin revealed. He licks his lips.

Harry looks to John, then to Martin, then back at John. She smirks and hides a laugh in her hand while she walks back to the sitting room to retrieve her handbag. When she returns, she presses Martin’s fee and a very hefty tip into his palm. “Take my brother out to the pub for a drink and dinner, will you? I need to get things sorted here, and he’ll just get in the way.”

“Harry!” John sputters.

“What? You _would_. Go on.” She grabs John by the shoulders and manhandles him over to the door, where Martin is already shrugging on his jacket. They step outside, and Harry closes the door behind them.

“There’s a pub down on the high street,” Martin offers.

“Sure, fine, if you want– I mean, you don’t have to, just because my sister–” John inclines his head, gesturing back towards his sister’s new house. His protest is somehow unconvincing.

And Martin can’t help but notice how John’s hair is a bit disheveled from helping move and his cheeks ruddy with the cold, against which he’s turned up the collar of his jacket. When he turns his head, the motion exposes the muscles of his neck and his Adam’s apple, both of which strike Martin as positively– He clears his throat. “It’s all right, it’s fine. Absolutely fine. Really. Fine. I mean, I don’t mind. At all.” Oh god, he’s rambling already. Better just to start walking and hope John Watson follows.

### The Red Lion, Fitton, 10th February, 5:09 p.m.

Martin and John are tucked into a booth at the side of the pub with pints of bitter and baskets of fish and chips. Both are hungry from a day started without breakfast and spent moving heavy boxes. (Lunch was tea and rather meagre sandwiches from the corner café.) It’s not until they’ve each finished their fish and half their chips that they both start to slow down and consider conversation.

“Have you always wanted to be a pilot?”

“An airline captain, actually. And yes, I’ve wanted to be an airline captain ever since I stopped wanting to be an aeroplane. I am one, too.”

“You’re an aeroplane?” John deadpans.

“No, I’m a captain, I meant!”

John grins and licks the salt off his fingertips. “That makes two of us then. Captain Watson and Captain Crieff.”

“Captain Watson?”

“Army.”

“Oh! John Watson! And earlier you mentioned Sherlock to your sister. You’re that Watson. _Doctor_ Watson. Well, _Captain_ Doctor Watson. I– I– I read your blog. Sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?” John is trying for mock-serious. Martin was already flushed a bit from the half-pint consumed so quickly—he has that kind of complexion, common for gingers—but now he’s red in the face clear to his hairline, the pink clashing terribly with the tumbles of ginger hair falling over his forehead.

“No, I mean, yes, I mean– I’m not some obsessive fan, but I do read your blog when you update it, which isn’t very often, so it is just sometimes I suppose. I didn’t mean–”

“It’s fine. Really.” John grins again, picks up his pint, and drains the remainder. “Another round, on me?”

Martin decides it’s safer just to nod.

After two more rounds, courtesy of Captain Doctor Watson, Martin and John are both nearly nodding off in the booth when John’s phone dings loudly.

> Need quicklime. SH

> In Fitton with Harry for the weekend. JW

> Need quicklime and plaster of Paris. SH

John is now frowning deeply, head bent over his phone. He’s pretty sure there’s no combination of quicklime and plaster of Paris that could result in the destruction of the flat, although of course he’s pointedly not thinking about the endless possibilities of quicklime and plaster of Paris and any of the thousands of other chemicals Sherlock has on hand at any given time.

“Is it Sherlock?”

John sighs, thumbs out a final message, and slips his phone back into his pocket. “It’s _always_ Sherlock.” The phone dings again in less than 10 seconds, but John ignores it.

Martin struggles valiantly to contain a yawn but fails.

“Tired?” John asks with a smile.

“Aren’t you?” Martin counters.

“No, I didn’t have any drink with my supper.”

Martin chuckles. “I didn’t have any supper with my drink.”

John is really grinning now. In fact, his face is starting to hurt from all the smiling he’s been doing the last eight or so hours. He plays this game all the time—dropping lines from his favourite movies into conversations when they fit—but no one (Sherlock, Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson) ever gets his references. So it’s a private game he plays to amuse himself at no one’s expense and usually without anyone noticing. But Martin Crieff, apparently, is not just anyone.

“That was–”

“Ridiculous?” Martin offers.

“Not _quite_ the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done, I admit. But it was pretty _bloody_ fantastic.”

Martin finds he can’t look away, not with John Watson’s eyes locked onto his, and sod it all but he’s going to fall for this man if he’s not careful. Just that thought spikes his heartbeat and sends him headlong into a stammer: “So– you’re, um, you– you’re staying with your sister for the whole weekend? Without Sherlock?”

The frown is back. “You realize Sherlock is my flatmate.” The ‘not my boyfriend’ goes unspoken. “Which means he lives in our flat. Which is _in London_. Not here.”

“Yes, of course, I didn’t mean– Oh bugger _all_. I wasn’t trying to imply anything. Why does everyone always think I’m trying to _imply_ things?”

But it’s fine, all fine, John assures him. And they finish their beers, chatting about spy movies and spy novels but saving the obligatory debate as to who is the best Bond for later. Martin walks John back to Harry’s house afterwards because his van is parked there, and it feels like walking a girl home after a first date, but John Watson is most definitely not a girl. And this was not a date, Martin reminds himself.

So he is surprised when it’s John trying to get his attention at the door to Harry’s house.

“So, that new Le Carré film is out. I’m helping Harry out tomorrow some, buying some new furniture and all that, but we’ve never really got on, to be honest. It’d be best for me to get out of her hair for at least part of the day. Want to go see it with me?”

“I– Yes, I’d love to. Sure. Definitely. Yes.”

### Fitton centre, 11th February, 6:18 p.m.

They’re soaked to the skin now, the light drizzle having turned into a steady, bone-chilling rain just as they left the theatre. Martin is walking with his shoulders hunched against the rain and his arms crossed tightly over his chest; his skin is nearly translucent, and his lips are starting to tinge blue at the edges. When they reach his van, John stops Martin before he can get in by gently pulling on one of his forearms.

“Do you have any spare clothes in there, maybe in your flight bag? You need to get out of these wet clothes. You’ll catch cold.”

“I– I have my uniform, I suppose.”

“Works for me.” John’s tone is completely flat, seemingly innocent of intentions, but the way he’s eyeing Martin– Martin waits for the warming wave of his own blush, but it doesn’t come. John is right: he is _very_ cold.

Martin unlocks the back of the van and steps in, crouching under the low ceiling behind the driver’s seat where his flight bag is stashed. He manages to fumble open the bag’s zip, but his fingers fail on the buttons of his jacket. They’re cold and stiff and not responding to the commands sent by his brain. Suddenly the inside of the van is darker, and Martin looks up from his pathetic attempt at button-opening to see John stepping into the van, blocking the light from the streetlights outside.

“Let me help?”

Martin lets his hands fall away and nods. He lowers himself to his knees and sits back on his heels; John follows suit and then reaches for the top button of Martin’s jacket.

God, if this isn’t mortifying… Martin takes a gulping swallow. At least he’s too cold to get inappropriately aroused. John’s hands are making quick work of his jacket buttons now, from top to bottom. Martin’s stomach muscles twitch when John undoes the last two, his fingertips brushing against the waistband of Martin’s jeans.

“Sorry. Ticklish?” John asks, looking up and— _for heaven’s sake_ —licking his lips.

Martin tentatively allows himself to wonder whether an inappropriate arousal would actually be inappropriate. John does seem to look at his mouth and his throat an awful lot and doesn’t mind spending time with him (suggested the movie even!) and now he’s _undressing Martin in the back of his van_. Oh god.

John has undone the first four buttons of Martin’s button-down, and now he’s sliding an impossibly warm hand inside to rest over Martin’s heart, which is fluttering wildly. John keeps his hand still at first and locks his gaze with Martin’s. For a long moment nothing moves except Martin’s heart and the dissipating clouds of condensation—coming together briefly and mingling before fading into invisibility—from their breathing in the cold air. Then John’s fingers are searching, drawing small circles on Martin’s damp, goose-pimpled chest until they find a tight nipple. Martin flinches and can’t help reflexively jerking away from the overstimulation. He opens his mouth to apologize but the hand in his shirt is now in his hair and John’s nose is nudging his and then his lips are on Martin’s lips and his other arm is tightening around Martin’s waist and his tongue is caressing Martin’s lower lip and then slipping inside when Martin opens his mouth a little further, curling his own arms around John’s waist.

The most pleasant thing about kissing John, at least in this moment, is how very _warm_ he is. His hand is warm in Martin’s hair, and his arm is warm around Martin’s waist, and even where his whole rain-soaked front is pressed up against Martin’s, shoulders to knees, it cuts through the chill of the cold air attempting vainly to evaporate the water from his clothes. And the inside of John’s mouth is an inferno, open now to Martin’s tongue. Martin has taken over the kiss as best he can without having better leverage, and he’s exploring, sweeping his tongue over John’s hard palate, exploring the line of his molars on both sides, top and bottom. John is letting him explore, gone surprisingly still and pliant. Finally, Martin nips and pulls on John’s bottom lip, sucking at it until John gets the message and takes over again.

The hand at Martin’s waist shifts up to press between his shoulder blades, and the hand in his hair spreads wide, a palm and five radials of warmth against his scalp nudging him impossibly closer into John’s heat. John’s tongue is in his mouth, stroking lightly against his own. Martin unwraps his arms from John’s waist and works them under his jacket instead, stealing more warmth.

After a minute or so, John withdraws his fingers and curls them in to tug gently on Martin’s hair, turning his head to the side so that he can kiss over to his ear to nibble on its outer edge and lobe and then suck at the tender skin just behind it. Martin groans, low and gravelly. John bites gently at his sternomastoid, protruding temptingly with the angle of his head. After distributing wet kisses all the way down to Martin’s collarbone (this he bites at as well), John moves to kiss Martin on the mouth again, but his lips barely connect before Martin jerks away.

“Sorry–” Martin sniffles. “My nose is running.” His voice is muffled from behind the back of his hand, pressed under his nose.

John laughs. “I’m failing miserably at getting you warmed up, aren’t I?”

With that, John slips into doctor mode and efficiently strips Martin of his sodden shirt (into which he convinces Martin to blow his nose after he’s removed it) as well as his trousers. Martin’s fingers are operating well enough now to do up his own uniform trousers and shirt, so John leaves him to it, climbing over the van’s centre console to settle himself in the passenger seat. Martin soon follows and fumbles his keys into the ignition, but before he can even try to start the van, John is tugging at the back of his neck and pulling him close enough for two gentle kisses, the second just a lingering of lips at the corner of his mouth and a puff of hot breath before he pulls back.

“Back to yours?”

“I– I don’t know. I’d like that, but it’s really not much.” Martin looks away.

“Does it contain a horizontal surface on which we can shag in relative comfort?”

Martin gulps and nods.

“Well then.” John reaches over and gives Martin’s knee a brief squeeze. Martin turns the key in the ignition, and the van— _thank every deity above and below, especially those with a special concern for travellers and drivers and pilots and suchlike_ —starts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   * Reader should assume Fitton is located within reasonable driving distance of London.
>   * The movie John and Martin quote at each other is the 1965 _The Spy Who Came in from the Cold_ based on the John le Carré novel of the same name. It's excellent. The novel is excellent too.
> 



	2. blindly falling faster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John gets himself into (and out of) trouble, Sherlock knows no boundaries, and Martin flies to the city of love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, note that Sherlock and John's case in this fic is ~~stolen~~ borrowed from the movie _Inside Man_ ; thus, there are spoilers here for that movie, although I don't spoil its major reveal.

### Fitton, 12th February, 10:13 a.m.

The sun is leaking through the single, narrow skylight window of Martin’s attic when John wakes. The glass is grimy, but the sunlight still picks out the gold overtones of Martin’s hair and makes them glow. Martin is lying on his side, his shoulder nearly touching the low slope of the wall. He’s tucked one hand under the pillow, but his other arm is draped over John’s stomach. It stays in place as John shifts onto his side facing Martin.

There’s a sort of boyish delicacy to Martin all the time—part of it is his height and frugal proportions, and part of it is his eager enthusiasm for flying and aeroplanes—but asleep he looks even younger and terribly _innocent_. The curve of his eyelashes resting on his moonglow-pale skin is particularly arresting. But even as these thoughts occur to John, he dismisses them: Martin is a grown man, and one who has been through more than his fair share of trials and tribulations in pursuit of his chosen career. He works for nothing and scrapes together a hand-to-mouth existence via manual labor. In some ways, his life has been harder than John’s own, and the last thing he needs is someone who’s not going to see him for what he really is: strong and independent and determined. But it’s also clear that he needs—or at least could benefit from—someone to help ease his burden, at least some of the time. It makes a ball of something gnarled and uncomfortable form in John’s stomach to think of how much he wants Martin to have someone like that and how much it can’t be him. At least not in the usual way. (Because _Sherlock_.)

But John’s not selfless enough to even consider giving Martin up—or, rather, pushing him away—“for his own good”, even if he thinks he’s not what’s best for Martin. So he sets about to convince himself that he’s good for Martin, starting with last night: he can feel good about last night. Despite John nearly making a right mess of things at one point, it turned out fine, perhaps even _well_.

A short drive from the movie theatre had deposited them at Martin’s shared house, where Martin had paused before unlocking the front door, turning to John.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he’d said, grimacing.

After pushing the door open, he’d stepped inside, leaving John to follow behind. They shucked their jackets and hung them on the already crowded rack of hooks mounted on the wall. Then Martin led the way further into the narrow hallway and, pausing at a narrow staircase, gestured up. “I live in the attic. I’m going to go change into something else.”

John grinned, shamelessly eyeing Martin-in-uniform from top to toe. “Can I help?”

The attic was warmer than the chilly main floor of the house; it had to be next to the only advantage of renting it, other than the relative privacy and quiet afforded by distance from the main floor. Otherwise the attic was cramped, the steeply sloping walls giving it even more of a claustrophobic feel. Martin’s bed—actually just a mattress—was tucked right up into where the sloping wall met the floor, to save space.

After entering, Martin turned and opened his mouth to speak, but John stopped him, grabbing him firmly by the hips.

“No apologizing. You didn’t see the awful bedsit I was in before I met Sherlock.”

John stepped back, turning to close the attic door behind him and then leaning back on it, crossing his arms over his chest. “Weren’t you going to get undressed?”

“Weren’t you going to help?” Martin retorted, startling a laugh out of John and drawing him back into Martin’s personal space.

But John’s idea of helping wasn’t helping at all. While Martin fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, John clasped his hands behind him and leaned forward to suck and lick at Martin’s neck. Martin moaned, and John felt the vibrations of it in his lips and in a sudden spike of arousal unfurling in his groin.

Then Martin pushed him back, shrugged off his open shirt, tugged off his trousers and socks, and lunged for John, pulling him back with one hand on his arse and the other snaking up his back, under both his jumper and vest. John tensed at the manhandling but covered it with a renewed attack on Martin’s throat, focusing his attentions lower, pushing his nose and then his lips into’s Martin’ jugular notch and sucking hard.

But Martin’s right hand was still climbing up John’s back, and then his left joined it to tug up at the bottom of John’s jumper. John paused and swallowed hard. Despite his earlier boldness—snogging Martin before he’d even really been certain that Martin was interested and then inviting himself over to Martin’s—he wasn’t ready for where this was going. He wasn’t ready to answer questions about the mess of his shoulder, and he wasn’t ready for some of the directions this sexual encounter could be heading. Despite his at times endearingly awkward social skills, Martin appeared to be much more comfortable with this—having sex with men—than John was. It’s not that John was uncomfortable with his bisexuality: it’s that his experience was so much more extensive with women, and the last time he’d been with a man had been before Afghanistan, before the scars. Somehow baring himself to another man was a terrifying prospect. Perhaps it was that, aside from the shoulder being nothing close to a sexual organ, there was a sense that another man would be able to empathize with his injury more, understand it better. Another man could put himself in John’s place, and that was a terrifying notion, for someone else to be cognizant of what was until now a private pain, a pain John kept carefully tucked away, hidden. (Hidden even from Sherlock, since his limp had been Sherlock’s initial point of focus, and he’d lost interest in the shoulder wound as soon as he’d correctly determined its location.)

It took John only a second of pause before he acted, employing his usual strategy: deflect and distract. Reaching behind himself, he pulled Martin’s hands from under his jumper and forced Martin back, pushing him down onto the mattress and sinking down to his knees in front of it. Martin gasped and stared with wide eyes while John roughly tugged at Martin’s boxers, forcing a hand under his arse to nudge him back onto his elbows, hips raised to allow John to pull his boxers down and off. John then removed his own jumper, deliberately leaving his vest on. He grabbed a pillow from the bed to shove under his knees and then pushed Martin’s legs apart, lowering his head while keeping his eyes fixed to Martin’s. Martin’s cock was mostly erect, a pleasing peach darkening to a dusky rose at the glans, just peeking out of his foreskin. It was fairly slender as cocks go, but longer than John would have presumed given Martin’s stature, and it was bobbing gently as Martin squirmed under John’s teasing, his mouth close enough that Martin must have been able to feel each of John’s exhalations, no doubt tantalizingly humid and warm against the sensitive skin of his glans.

John licked his lips and then bent his head the final inches to draw just the head of Martin’s cock into his mouth, barely exerting any pressure at all, just holding it against the roof of his mouth with his tongue and letting his mouth water. Drawing Martin’s left leg over his right shoulder and shifting closer, he pressed his right arm over Martin’s hips and grasped the base of his cock in his left, then slowly slid his mouth down to meet his hand. Martin tensed and twitched, but John didn’t move his head. He rubbed his tongue up and down Martin’s shaft, as much as he could reach without moving, and he let the saliva gathered in his mouth drip down, slicking his hand and the base of Martin’s cock below. John stroked upwards lightly as he pulled his head up, releasing Martin’s cock from his mouth with a soft pop. He looked up to catch Martin’s eye while he delivered three tight strokes to his cock, twisting on the upstroke. Martin made a choking sound and threw his head back, clutching desperately at the sheets.

“Good?” John asked.

“More.”

“More what?” John stroked again, pausing at the top to rub his forefinger in Martin’s slit, gathering up the pre-come beginning to leak out.

“Fuck!” Martin threw an arm over his eyes and bit his lip. “More. Your mouth. God, please.”

He hardly had to get the words out before John was taking him in again, his lips tight and his cheeks hollowing with suction. John worked Martin’s cock quickly and thoroughly, using his hand and his mouth, sucking hard and rubbing the point of his tongue hard against Martin’s frenulum at the top of each suck. He was too nervous to draw it out. It’d been so long since he’d been to bed with a man, and John’s only thought was to get Martin off before he could suggest other activities that John might not be as comfortable with.

For his part, Martin was moaning almost continuously, and he’d broken out into a sweat, his chest glistening. John shifted his hand from around the base of Martin’s cock down to fondle his balls, already drawn up tight and high. When John rubbed his thumb gently across the seam, Martin gasped suddenly, “Oh god, close!” John pulled his mouth off Martin’s cock and started pulling on it with both hands, one immediately following the other to give the sensation of one infinitely long, tight pull. When he came, Martin arched, lifting his hips far off the mattress and digging his heel into John’s shoulder blade, and he went utterly boneless after the aftershocks passed, not even bothering to remove his leg from John’s shoulder.

John gently extracted himself from under Martin’s leg and cleaned up the mess (mostly on his hand) with some tissues he spied on the floor next to the mattress. He stood to peel off his jeans and socks, then crawled onto the mattress to settle himself on his right side next to Martin, trailing his fingers idly through the cooling sweat on Martin’s chest. Martin had still had his eyes closed, but he opened them at the touch and turned to look at John.

The trust in Martin’s gaze was by turns arresting and almost panic-inducing. All of this had happened so fast. It wasn’t just that it was sex on the first date (John was usually more of a sex on the third date kind of man), but it was the way it already seemed to be about more than sex. Martin was– It was hard to say exactly why John was so attracted to him, except that maybe it wasn’t. He was a kindred spirit, somehow, dedicated to the work he loved regardless of the financial payoff (or lack thereof). And he was remarkably open: open to John’s affection, to his protective instincts, hell, even to his jokes. So to find himself lying next to a post-orgasmic Martin, staring into his blue-gray eyes when barely more than 48 hours previously he’d been sleeping on the _Guardian_ at the kitchen table in 221B was shocking, at the least.

John swallowed hard and tried not to look away. Not twenty seconds passed before he succumbed to the desire, clawing desperately inside him, to break the eye contact. He leaned in to kiss Martin, and Martin returned the kiss readily but lazily, barely turning his head any further to the side. He reached out to cup the back of John’s head and rubbed his fingers through the short strands of hair just above his nape.

It was Martin who broke the kiss, pulling away slowly and waiting for John to meet his eyes again before asking, quietly, “Will you fuck me?”

John jerked in surprise. “What?” He frowned. “But you’ve already–?”

One corner of Martin’s mouth curved into a coy smile. “I rather like it, a nice slow fuck after I’ve already come.”

John pulled away, dislodging Martin’s hand from his hair. His heart was pounding, and he had to struggle to control his breathing. “I’m not–” he started. Martin was frowning as John struggled—and ultimately failed—to find the right words. He settled for just words, any words, something to start with: “I’m not gay.”

It wasn’t really a surprise that Martin was quick and agile, with his physique. He was at the door and pulling on a dressing gown before John managed to find any more words.

“Sorry– That came out wrong, but it’s true. I’m not gay. I’m bisexual. And I–”

John watched as Martin turned away from the door but didn’t move away from it; he stood just in front of it and crossed his arms over his chest. John got up from the mattress and moved to stand in front of Martin, just stopping himself from reaching for him. Martin would probably want space, for the moment.

“I’m sorry. I should say that again. What I was trying to start to say and cocked up beyond belief is that–” It took every shred of John’s self-control not to look away. “That although I’m attracted to men and particularly attracted to _you_ , I’m not very experienced with men. I’ve never fucked a man, or been fucked by one.” John drew in a shaky breath and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Basically I’m just an arrogant sod who led you on a bit with all my talk of shagging. Or at least, as far as tonight is concerned. I’m not saying I’m not–” John stopped again, dropping his eyes to the floor and giving Martin the opportunity to surprise him with a hand on the back of his head again and his lips at John’s ear.

“It’s okay. I may have overreacted a bit.” He kissed John’s temple and his cheekbone and sighed when John’s arms tentatively wrapped around his waist. John pressed their foreheads together and tried to rest, to focus only on Martin’s fingers in his hair and Martin’s other arm hugging him tight around the waist and the still quiet of the attic and…Martin’s stomach growling?

John pulled back very slightly. “Hungry?” he asked.

Martin couldn’t very well lie, so he nodded.

“Let’s feed you up then. Shall I actually help you get dressed now?”

To John’s relief, Martin had seemed to instantly recognize John’s evasion for what it was: an evasion sourced in raw nerves and guilty embarrassment and lingering insecurities about his lack of (much) sexual experience with men. So Martin had let John treat him to a curry and then a pint, and he’d led John back to his house from the pub. Martin no longer seemed embarrassed by his lodgings now that John had seen them, but he was visibly nervous, fiddling with the cuffs of his jacket and looking anywhere but at John. Finally he took a deep breath and spoke on the exhale, “You can stay, if you like. I mean, we don’t have to…again, if you don’t want. I just– Stay the night, if you don’t want to get a cab back to Harry’s. I can’t drive you, after the pub…”

John reached out to slide his thumb over Martin’s cheekbone and bring his head in for a slow kiss.

“I’ll stay. Thank you.”

Martin led the way back into the house. “Cuppa?” he asked as they shucked their jackets.

“That’d be bloody perfect, yeah.”

A young woman was already in the kitchen, and when they entered, she turned from the stove and smiled. “Martin!”

“Hi, uh, Zadie, this is John. John, Zadie.”

“Nice to meet you.” Zadie shook John’s hand and smiled at him. “I was just finishing up in here; I’ll be out of your hair in a minute.”

“That’s okay, you don’t need to–”

“It’s fine, I have some reading to do.” Zadie ladled some soup from her pot on the stove into a bowl and started shifting the rest of her previously laid-out dinner setting from the kitchen table onto a tray. She scooted out the kitchen backwards. “Have a good evening. Nice to meet you, John.”

John looked at Martin quizzically. Martin shrugged in response and set about making tea.

When they’d returned to the attic, John had quickly stripped down to his vest and boxers, setting a precedent that Martin then followed. Martin tucked himself into bed on the far side of the mattress, wedged in under the sloping wall. He held the duvet up for John, inviting. John slid into the bed and lay on his side, facing Martin. It seemed appropriate to lean over and kiss Martin goodnight, at the very least, and so John did. But one kiss quickly turned into Martin pulling John on top of him. He spread his legs for John to settle between them and stroked up and down John’s back, from shoulders to hips. John felt himself growing hard and rolled his hips into Martin’s, as much stimulating himself as checking to see whether Martin was getting hard as well.

Martin groaned into John’s mouth and wrapped his arms tightly around his ribcage. “Oh God, don’t stop doing that,” he gasped.

John frotted against Martin, keeping his thrusts slow and rolling and even, until suddenly Martin rolled them over and thrust his fingers inside the waistband of John’s boxers.

“Let me?”

John grunted and nodded in acknowledgment, and Martin stripped them both of their boxers, then crawled back on top of John, straddling him at the waist and pressing their cocks together, rolling his hips in a quick, urgent snaps. He attacked John’s ear, swirling his tongue in the whorls and pulling on the lobe with his teeth. John clutched at the back of his head and at his hip, digging his heels into the mattress and pushing up, trying to keep as much friction on his cock as possible. He’d shut his eyes tightly against the onslaught of sensation, almost too much at the end of a day that had already unbalanced him.

Martin released John’s earlobe with a last lingering lick and leaned to the side to give himself room to reach between them to wrap his long fingers around both of their cocks, hot and hard and leaking. He rubbed his fingers over the heads, and John’s hips jerked sharply.

“Good?”

“Um.” John was silent for a moment, eyes and mouth both clenched tightly closed. “Don’t stop.”

“You could help, if you like.” Martin leaned down to bite playfully at John’s nose and then attacked his mouth, pressing his tongue inside to discourage further discussion.

In a moment John released his iron grip on Martin’s hip and moved his hand to grip their cocks near the base, helping to hold them steady for Martin’s hand. Martin swiftly built up a rhythm of quick strokes punctuated by the press and release of his hips. When he thumbed over the head of John’s cock on an upstroke, John stiffened. “Oh God, I’m close–”

“Good. Come for me, John.”

Two more strokes and John came, arching off the bed and clenching his hand painfully in Martin’s hair. The sight of it was almost too much for Martin; he let go of John’s cock and pumped his own until he came all over John’s groin and collapsed on top of him. John unclenched his fingers and rubbed at Martin’s scalp, trying to soothe the hurt. Martin failed to hide a wince.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Martin mumbled into John’s neck.

“‘Don’t be’ as in…”

“Hmm?”

“…you liked it?”

Martin raised his head. “Oh! No ,no, I’m not– I don’t get off on having my hair pulled. I just…didn’t mind. I mean, I minded, but it was worth it. It’s fine. No permanent damage.”

John frowned. Martin scrambled up onto his knees, holding his semen-covered hand awkwardly away from himself. John’s frown deepened.

“I’m just going to go get a flannel.”

Martin cleaned them both up and retrieved their pants, unnecessarily helping John into his. By the time he’d returned from rinsing out and returning the flannel to the toilet, John was half asleep, so Martin just resettled himself on the far side of the mattress, kissed John on the cheek, and eased an arm to rest over John’s ribcage, exactly the position John finds himself in waking up the following morning.

John leans in and presses a tender kiss to the corner of Martin’s sleep-slack and slightly open mouth before rolling the other direction, to the edge of the mattress. He gets up and pulls on his discarded jeans; they’re still a bit uncomfortably damp in places since they weren’t hung up properly to dry. John grimaces and scrubs a hand over his face and through his hair. He picks up his jumper—this, thankfully, is dry—and eases the door open so that he can slip through without waking Martin.

At the bottom of the steep staircase he nearly runs into Zadie, clearly only just out of bed herself in a pair of tights and a loose jumper, her hair pulled back into a messy ponytail.

“Sorry–” John starts.

“Oh!” Zadie steps back to give John room to finish his descent. “I was just coming up– There’s someone at the door. For you.” That must be why John woke up. The bell, and voices, even two storeys down.

“For me?”

“Yeah. Tall, dark hair, posh? Kind of an arse, though. Asked for ‘John Watson’ and got all snippy when I wanted to know why.”

John clenches his jaw hard and lets his eyes float skyward, a silent prayer to a deaf God that he hasn’t believed in since his first flat line on an operating table (long before Afghanistan). As he’s heading for the main stair down to the ground floor, Zadie stops him with a hand on his arm.

“John?”

John waits.

“I know we’ve only just met, and it’s not my place, but– Please tell me that man at the door is not your jealous boyfriend. Martin–”

“Martin what?” Martin asks, emerging sleepy-eyed (and underdressed in boxers and his threadbare vest) at the top of the attic stairs. The voices must have woken him.

John glances at Martin, at the stairs, and at Zadie, who is watching him (and him alone) with a crease in her brow.

John turns back to the attic stairs and begins to ascend. “Would you tell that tit downstairs that I’ll be down in a few minutes?”

“My pleasure.” Zadie grins, but John, climbing back up the steep staircase to the attic, is no longer looking at her. At the door, he nudges Martin back into the attic, closing the door behind him and then leaning back on it, pulling Martin flush against him.

“Sorry,” John starts. He slides his hands up under Martin’s vest, stroking lightly over taut, warm skin. He kisses the corner of Martin’s mouth again and mouths along the line of his jaw. Martin tilts his head back further and hums through an exhalation of breath.

“Why sorry?” Martin asks in a voice still rough and deep from sleep.

“I didn’t really mean for you to wake up alone. I meant to be right back after using the loo.”

“But Zadie was looking for you?”

“Mmm hmm.” John has reached the thin skin behind Martin’s ear, and he nuzzles into it and breathes in deeply before pulling away, still holding Martin by the waist.

“Sherlock’s downstairs, apparently.”

“Oh! I see, so– It must be important. You have–”

John interrupts with a snort. “It’s likely not. But I should go down before he gets it into his head to come up here. Do you want to come down with me?”

“Come down and meet Sherlock Holmes, the Sher– the world’s only–”

“Magnificent git who doesn’t know what boundaries are? Yes, that Sherlock Holmes. I can guarantee that’s he’s going to be an absolute arse.” John plays his fingers up and down what he can reach of Martin’s spine. “But if you want to get it over with?”

“Get it over with?”

“Yes, well, I’d like to continue seeing you. If you’d like to continue seeing me, I’m afraid meeting Sherlock is more or less inevitable.”

“But– I can’t– I’m not dressed!”

“Trust me, Sherlock won’t care. And if history serves, the fewer clothes you’re wearing, the harder it will be for him to–” John waves a hand in the space between them.

“Deduce me?”

“Something like that.”

Martin considers for a moment, then shrugs. “Okay.” But he isn’t going to go down to meet Sherlock Holmes in his pants; he pulls on a well-worn pair of jeans and a too-large jumper before following John down.

Whether Zadie invited Sherlock in or he invited himself in is unclear, but he’s sat at the kitchen table thumbing at his phone. There’s a visibly steaming cup of coffee at his right elbow and a laptop (John’s, he realizes later) set aside, closed, at his left. He doesn’t look up when John and Martin enter the room, but Zadie turns from her breakfast preparations to watch.

John plants himself in front of the table and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Sherlock.”

Sherlock looks up. “Ah, John.” He moves to open to the laptop, but John glares at him.

“How did you know where I was, Sherlock?”

Sherlock snorts and returns to opening the laptop as he says, “Obvious.”

“Obvious?”

“Remember our first case together?”

John thinks for a moment. “The GPS in my phone.” He pauses. “How long have you been tracking it then?”

Sherlock ignores him as he fusses with something on the laptop.

“Come look at this, John.”

“How _long_ , Sherlock?”

Sherlock finally looks up from the laptop, fixing his cool, steady stare on John. “Again, obvious.”

“Not obvious to me!”

Sherlock frowns for a moment and hesitates, which is uncharacteristic, to say the least, and it makes John nervous. Whatever Sherlock doesn’t want to say is probably something John doesn’t want to hear.

“Since the pool,” he finally answers. His tone is softer, satin rather than smooth, sharp carbon steel.

“Oh.”

The room is still and silent under the weight of the moment. Sherlock and John are locked together by gaze, unmoving and mute.

“Yes, oh,” Sherlock snaps, losing his patience. “Take a look at this.” Sherlock gestures to the laptop and John moves closer to look over Sherlock’s shoulder, noticing as he does that Zadie is gone from the kitchen; only Martin is still with them, watching from near the doorway.

Sherlock presses play on a video file. A furrow appears in John’s brow as the video starts. He folds his arms across his chest and leans a bit closer, squinting and frowning.

Then suddenly John is pushing Sherlock’s hands away from the laptop so that he can stop the video and close the window. “Sherlock!” he hisses. “Why the hell did you just show me a video of–”

“Of what?” Sherlock asks, coolly.

“Of a– A fake bloody execution.”

Sherlock half-suppresses a smile. “ _Very_ good, John. _Excellent_ , this is excellent.”

And then he’s up, folding the laptop and putting his mobile back in his pocket. He moves to leave the kitchen, but John blocks his path.

“John.”

“Sherlock.” John clenches his hands and releases them. Twice. “Explain.”

“The American bank, with the hostages. I told them it was staged as soon as they showed me the video, but they didn’t believe me. I knew your opinion would carry more weight, given your experience with such things.”

“But why here?”

Sherlock looks confused.

“You couldn’t have sent me a link? Phoned?”

“Oh! No, security measures. I’m only able to access the video through a secure VPN.”

“On _my_ computer?”

“It was the one I was using when Detective Frazier called.”

John sighs. “And now? Now what?”

“Back to London. This–” Sherlock waves a hand dismissively. “This was just a distraction. I’m still working on the rest of it. Why _that_ bank? Why–”

John holds up a hand. “All right. Fine. Just next time…next time at least text first?”

Sherlock blinks in surprise. John’s ‘next time’ seems to imply that John is planning to spend more time here, in Fitton. Sherlock sweeps his gaze over the room, stopping when he sees Martin, who is leant against one of the counters, just inside the kitchen’s entryway. Sherlock’s eyes narrow in a way that’s utterly familiar to John: he’s scanning Martin, cataloguing every detail and adding them up.

“Let me introduce you,” John interrupts, and Sherlock turns to glare at him. John ignores him.

“Sherlock, this is Martin. Martin, Sherlock Holmes.”

Martin extends his right hand. “It’s, um, very nice to meet you, Mr. Holmes. I’m a fan of your work. From John’s blog.”

Sherlock shakes Martin’s hand briefly, beginning to frown.

“Oh come off it, Sherlock! I’ve told you no one reads _your_ blog.”

Sherlock huffs. He sets the laptop back on the kitchen table and picks up his coffee, sipping from it before fixing Martin in his stare and speaking again. “So you and John are…dating?”

Martin is tense but doesn’t flinch. He swallows and clears his throat. “Uh. Yes.”

Sherlock stares at him for another collection of seconds. He slurps down the remainder of his coffee and turns to John. “He doesn’t seem your usual type.”

John snorts. “And what exactly do _you_ think my _type_ is?”

“Well, to start they’re usually female. But they’re also usually rather plain-looking and have dull jobs. Essentially your type is much more _boring_ than–” Sherlock waves a hand at Martin, whose eyes have gone rather wide.

John laughs and scrubs a hand over his face. “I’m glad you approve. Now go, please.”

Sherlock shows himself out, but John only gets a couple of minutes to press Martin against the counter and snog him before Zadie reenters. John thanks her for dealing with Sherlock and offers to do a fry-up for all of them. Martin proves to be absolutely no help in the kitchen, but it’s nice anyway, cozily domestic in a way that life with Sherlock almost never is.

John leaves after breakfast, returning to Harry’s to finish helping her to put together a new set of bookcases from Ikea. It’s the last day he’s planned to stay in Fitton. Having made plans to take Martin out to dinner (Sherlock had texted him in the afternoon to point out that Angelo’s cousin owns an Italian restaurant in Fitton), John waits until late afternoon to shower.

Harry knocks on the door while John’s getting dressed. “Martin called. He said he has to cancel tonight. A last minute flight was booked. To Paris, I think.”

“Okay, thanks.”

When John emerges from the toilet and checks his mobile, there’s only the call from Martin, the call that Harry had answered. John seats himself on the edge of the bed, considering. He’s disappointed but doesn’t know precisely why, beyond the obvious loss of what would have been another nice evening out with a man he’s quite attracted to. It’s a few hours later, after dinner with Harry, that he figures it out: he’s afraid. He’s afraid that now they might not connect again because it’s strange, not having been able to part on a proper goodbye. But there’s a solution, John hopes. He takes out his mobile and sends Martin a text:

> Got your message. Missing you, but I understand. Please call me when you get back. JW


	3. fell out of the sky (cease it to be)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation at the pointy end, a mysterious plane crash, and John Watson, always prepared.

### Gertie, 12th February, 7:24 p.m.

The approach over CDG is unreasonably beautiful at night, with the brilliant lights of Paris a carpet of dazzling luminescence to the southwest. (It’s not nicknamed the City of Lights for nothing.) Douglas has the landing, so Martin is allowing himself to wallow in his annoyance at having to miss his date with John for this flight, chauffeuring a hen party to Paris. Some starlet, getting married on a moment’s notice.

“Come on, Martin, it’s not that hard,” Douglas chides.

“What?”

“You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said, have you?”

Martin doesn’t answer.

“Well, I’ve just racked up three more actors with palindromic surnames.”

“Of _course_ you have.” Martin sighs.

“Sir doesn’t want to hear them?”

Martin waves a hand in the air noncommittally. It could be “Go on,” and it could be “Please yourself. I don’t care.”

There’s silence for a bit, and then Douglas observes, “I would have thought an evening flight into Paris would have appealed to your carefully hidden inner romantic.”

Martin scoffs. “You don’t know me nearly as well as you think you do.”

“Oh?”

Martin considers the dilemma at hand. Tell Douglas the truth or evade? Perhaps give him something to nibble on, but not the whole truth. “I’m afraid the cliché of twinkly Paris lights is rather disappointing compared to the date I should have been on right now and had to cancel.”

Martin doesn’t have to look Douglas’ way to know that his eyebrows are climbing up onto his forehead. “ _Oh_.”

“Yes, well, my luck: it never fails. Or it always fails.”

“And this date of yours was unhappy about the cancellation?”

Martin’s never been quite sure whether Douglas knows that he’s gay. He has noticed that Douglas is astonishingly good at referring to Martin’s dates—whether potential or actual—without using gendered pronouns. He’s _so_ good at it that Martin has actually noticed. He’s noticed, and yet he’s still undecided about what to think. Perhaps Douglas knows, or perhaps Douglas is just leaving the question open, refraining from making any assumptions.

“I don’t really know,” Martin responds, truthfully and gender-neutrally.

“I hope it wasn’t a first date.”

“No. It would have been the second.”

“Well, at least it wasn’t the all-important _third_.”

Martin desperately wills himself not to blush, but the tell-tale heat spreads over his cheeks. For a moment, it almost seems as if Douglas hasn’t noticed.

But then he notices.

“Oh, now _that’s_ interesting. Couldn’t wait, could you?”

In for a penny, in for a pound. Martin side-eyes Douglas to make sure he has his full attention. “Twice, in fact.”

Douglas recovers in half a minute. “I’m less sorry for you now, I’m afraid. Lamenting the loss of your second-date sex when you had not one but _two_ instances of first-date sex is just plain greedy.”

“Not to mention the first date was last night.”

“You do realize I’m an unhappily celibate thrice-divorced old man over here, don’t you? You’re just twisting the knife now.”

“What about cabin crew?”

“Well, Martin, for two very different reasons, I’m afraid neither Arthur nor Carolyn quite float my boat.”

They both chuckle at the callback, but Martin’s laughter dies rather quickly.

“Do you really think you’ve ruined your chances just by cancelling on a date?”

“I don’t know. No, not really. It’s just– I think our rafts only bumped together, and now they’re just going to drift apart again.”

“Ah, the great Martin Crieff raft theory of life again. Who am I to argue with such wisdom?”

Martin glares.

“In all seriousness, Martin, I’ve been married and divorced three times. Am I not living proof that raft-hopping is possible?”

“Maybe for you. Maybe even for me, if I were to get lucky for once. But I don’t think this time– He’s already got a pretty full raft, I think.”

It’s not for a few seconds after his words are out that Martin realizes his slip: _he’s_ got a full raft.

“Children?”

“No.”

“Caring for his dying parents or something then?”

 _His_ dying parents. So Douglas noticed. And apparently isn’t going to comment.

“No, just– It’s complicated.”

“ _Life_ is complicated, Martin. Try not to mourn your chickens before your hen’s even laid the eggs.”

Martin wrinkles his nose in distaste.

“I know,” Douglas laughs. “That metaphor was rather strained, wasn’t it?”

“One of your worst.”

“Chaps?” Arthur pokes his head in. “What’s the best way, do you think, to get someone’s head unstuck from a toilet seat, if they’d got it stuck there?”

“What?!?” Martin exclaims. “Did one of the hens–?”

“Oh no! I think it’d be rather a job, getting your head stuck in our toilet seat, don’t you think? Not enough room to crouch down that low in our loo…”

“And so why is this suddenly a pressing question?” Douglas asks.

“Ah, yes. One of the hens was just telling a story about this bloke who got his head stuck–”

“In a toilet seat, am I right?”

“Yes, exactly! And everyone started arguing about what would have been the best way to get him out. And I thought you’d know, Douglas, so I decided to come ask.”

“As flattered as I am to be considered the font of all knowledge, Arthur, I really don’t know the best way to remove a man’s head from a toilet seat if he’s been daft enough to try to put his head through one and get it stuck there.”

Arthur’s disappointment is palpable, and the lights of Paris twinkling below are still devastatingly pretty and drawing closer and closer as they make their descent.

### Fitton Airfield, 28th February, 7:42 a.m.

When Martin sees John again, it’s not because they planned it. They’d tried to plan, but the week after the Paris flight, Martin had a full schedule of flights and van jobs. He was free on the weekend, but Friday evening Lestrade had called, asking for Sherlock’s (and, by extension, John’s) help on a blackmailing case. By the time that case wrapped up, Martin was in Moscow on a week of standby for the ever-imperious Mr. Alyakhin. Moscow was cold and frustrating and full of sullen Russians that were rude to him even when he was trying to _buy_ things from them, and he and John had tried to talk on Skype once (Martin from an overpriced and loud internet cafe that seemed to do more business selling absinthe and cognac to extremely long-legged Russian women than selling internet access), but they gave up after the connection kept failing.

So Martin does what he usually does in this kind of situation: he tries to convince himself that a serious relationship with John Watson isn’t something he actually _wants_. It’d be crazy, he tells himself, to get deeply _involved_ with someone who regularly chases down murderers and serial killers, who gets kidnapped by a sadistic genius bomber. And equally crazy would be getting seriously involved with John Watson who already has Sherlock as…something. It’s not a _sexual_ something, granted, but there’s clearly _something_ there. A partnership. A _life_ partnership.

So Martin doesn’t even mind when they’re back from Russia, and then barely sixteen hours later he’s waking up to a phone call from Carolyn because they’re flying to Tromsø (Norway) in two hours. And he doesn’t notice the names of the passengers (Sherlock Holmes, John Watson) or the payor (Mycroft Holmes) when he’s doing the pre-flight paperwork.

He’s on his walk-around when they approach.

“…and this is the Captain for your flight, Martin Crieff.”

He startles. John is grinning; Sherlock gives the smallest of nods.

“Crieff, did you say?” John asks.

Martin is speechless. After a moment, Carolyn steps in, rolling her eyes at him. “Yes, Captain Crieff.”

Sherlock is already mounting the stair into the plane. After Carolyn speaks for Martin, John moves to follow Sherlock, aiming a carefully-out-of-Carolyn’s-line-of-sight wink Martin’s way.

“Martin, are you going to continue gaping like a fish or are you going to finish your walk-around?”

Martin turns back to his clipboard, pulse racing and palms abruptly sweating.

“Sir seems decidedly distractible today,” Douglas observes after take-off.

“I’m perfectly capable–” Martin starts. Douglas is going to find out, sooner or later. But how to say it? ‘One of our clients is the man I shagged twice on a first date?’ No, that won’t do.

Douglas apparently decides to have mercy and tries to change the subject. “This pair of passengers is a bit odd, no? And flying to Tromsø on an urgent whim is even odder.”

“What’s so odd about Tromsø?”

“Really, Martin? Is it your ideal of a mid-winter vacation spot? In the near constant darkness and bitter cold of winter above the Arctic Circle?”

“They’re probably not on vacation, then.”

Douglas shrugs. It’s fairly obvious that Douglas has already made the assumption that most people seem to make about Sherlock and John, if John’s defensive frustration with Martin’s accidental suggestion of their being in a romantic relationship is anything to go by (not to mention some of the comments on John’s blog). And that just means that it’s going to be even _more_ awkward when Douglas eventually finds out about him and John, but it’s also already more difficult to explain, so Martin chews on his bottom lip and lets the topic die.

Martin’s landing in Tromsø is smooth as a baby’s bottom, helped along by clear skies and little wind.

Tromsø itself is cold and dark. Carolyn has sprung for a good hotel because she herself hates being cold, and it’s a fact that cheap hotels in Scandinavia skimp on the heating. Sherlock and John are staying at the same hotel, so an airport van service drops them all off together.

“Captain Crieff, a word?” John asks after they’ve all checked in and are preparing to disperse from the lobby.

“Sure, of course. My pleasure.”

Douglas rolls his eyes but miraculously departs the lobby without another word.

Sherlock is deep in conversation with the one of the front desk staff, and John seems relaxed, a twinkle in his eye belying a bit of excitement even.

“We do have a case here,” John starts. “And it’s not just to _get here_ that we hired MJN.”

“No?”

“It’s a plane crash, the case. Sherlock might be a arrogant arse, but he does actually know to ask for advice when he doesn’t have the expertise to handle some of the evidence.”

“There haven’t been any crashes around here recently.”

“Not that the public knows about, no.” John grins. Then he picks up Martin’s flight bag and jerks his chin towards the lift. “Let’s just get settled. Then we’ll see what Sherlock wants to do.”

For a moment, Martin just watches John as he walks toward the lift carrying both their bags. Then he takes a deep breath and mentally kicks his legs into motion to follow.

### Tromsø, 28th February, 4:15 p.m.

Martin knows enough about John and Sherlock’s cases from reading John’s blog to know that this case is different, atypical. There are bodies, sure—the two pilots, the M.P., the Norwegian trade ambassador, her husband and their teenage daughter, along with three staffers (two Norwegian, one British)—but there is no need to examine the bodies (what’s left of them): how they died is not the mystery. The mystery is why the plane went down, less than ten kilometres from the Tromsø airport but on an entirely separate island, on Kvaløya, in the foothills of the mountains.

The conditions had not been ideal, certainly. There had been an icy fog, and thus the pilots had been flying under [IFR](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_flight_rules). The tiny charter aircraft, a Beech King Air A100, wasn’t required to have an [FDR](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_data_recorder) or a [CVR](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockpit_voice_recorder), so there was no direct evidence to tell of the cause of the crash.

In their preliminary report (provided by John for Martin’s perusal), the Norwegian Accident Investigation Board has already ruled out nearly every possible cause, aside from pilot incompetence and foul play. The weather was poor, but atmospheric data and interviews with other pilots who landed at Tromsø just prior to the crash indicated that airframe icing was occurring in two bands: moderate icing between 2,400 and 3,400 metres and just trace icing between 1,500 and 2,400 metres. The evidence from radar showed the King Air maintaining high airspeed throughout the time spent in the band with the potential for moderate icing and only losing airspeed at lower elevation, when accumulated ice would have been shedding, leading to improved, not lowered, performance. So icing as a cause of the crash was ruled out, along with every other non-human factor it was possible to verify without detailed flight data.

Hence: Sherlock. (And because Sherlock is no expert in flying or aircraft: Martin.)

Sherlock’s lengthy discussion with the front desk staff turns out to have been a debate about transportation out to Kvaløya. He wants to see the crash site straightaway, without waiting for the AIB investigator’s arrival in the morning.

Sherlock, as usual, gets his way, and they’re off to Kvaløya within the hour, driven there via the Sandnessund bridge by a tall, taciturn blond. Only John seems to appreciate the view from the bridge, a candy-coloured late afternoon sunset staining the southwestern sky and the water below the bridge reflecting it in mirror image. Sherlock is busy with his mobile, the driver is driving, and Martin is alternately watching Sherlock and watching John.

The crash site has been cleaned up, but it’s still obvious. The fire melted the snow away, and only a scant couple of centimetres has fallen in the time since to cover the ground. There are also scattered bits of debris. Sherlock, surprisingly, isn’t interested in any of the physical evidence. His gaze is fixed on the horizon, and he rotates, slowly, in a circle, scanning. He spots something just north of due west, then turns back to the driver with a request. The driver grunts a vaguely affirmative response, and then they’re back in the van, heading up a narrower road and finally turning onto a long drive and stopping in front of a low, dark-beige farmhouse with a steeply gabled roof. When Sherlock makes to follow the driver out of the van, the driver stops him.

“You think whoever lives here might have seen something,” John guesses.

Sherlock turns from the front seat and looks at Martin.

“I think– It’s probably more likely and more relevant that whoever lives here could have _heard_ something,” Martin offers, and Sherlock responds with the smallest upward curl of one side of his mouth.

There’s hardly the need for the hotel van driver to translate, once they’re inside talking with Magnus Tollefsrud: his hands very nearly do all of the talking. First one hand extended flat, moving forward and ever so slightly downward, starting up over his ear. Then both hands spread flat, fingers extended, held in front of his chest. Finally both hands fisted, then released, exploding outwards. It’s easy to put together: the buzz of the turboprop engines, growing steadily quieter; then silence, flat and still and sudden; and in the end, the crash.

Martin thinks aloud: “They lost airspeed and stalled, and the pilot–” Sherlock turns to Martin. “The pilot must not have been able to recover.”

They’re back in the van when Martin puts the rest of it together. “But why did they stall? The report said that icing couldn’t have been a problem once they dropped into their approach. It’s doesn’t make sense. Why did they stall? And why were they so far of course, so far west of the airport?”

“Can you make him shut up, John? I’m trying to _think_.”

Martin closes his mouth with a click of teeth and then jumps at John’s hand on his knee, squeezing briefly.

### Tromsø, 1st March, 7:04 a.m.

Martin wakes before John, not because he’s unused to waking up in hotel rooms. Obviously not for that reason. But he’s still conscious of the fact that Douglas (and Carolyn and, to a lesser extent of his worry, Arthur) are completely unaware that one of their passengers also happens to be his…boyfriend. So he wakes early, instantly anxious and unable to enjoy the luxury of waking up next to a still sleeping John Watson. He extracts himself from the bed without disturbing John and showers and dresses as quickly as he can.

He’s about to exit the room when he stops and steps back to the bed. It’s a silly paradox, what to do in this kind of situation. It would feel somehow negligent if he left without kissing John, even just a peck on the forehead; it’s the kind of thing John would do, he’s sure of that, has a half-memory of it somewhere deep in his subconscious. But at the same time it feels like taking a liberty: he’s never really had this before, this thing that’s not just about getting off but is about sleeping in the same bed and waking up together and at least _attempting_ to keep in touch between the times when they see each other. And it’s not as if John will notice if he doesn’t do anything. The whole point is that John is still asleep.

“ _Jesus_ , Martin.” John knuckles his eyes and groans. “Stop _staring_.”

“I– Sorry. I–” He takes a deep breath, unclenches his fingers from his shirt cuffs, and sits at the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry. I just– Douglas and Carolyn don’t know about you. I really meant to tell them, but I just couldn’t figure out how to bring it up, when you just showed up with Sherlock as a passenger. I couldn’t think of how to bring it up, and I’m actually not, um, _out_ to Carolyn, although I suppose Douglas knows, and he’s fine with it, or he seems to be, but we haven’t really _discussed_ it, so– So I was just trying to get down to breakfast before either of them comes looking for me or sees us coming down together or something. Sorry. I didn’t mean– Sorry.”

John yawns. “You worry too much.” He reaches out to rub one of Martin’s forearms. “It’s fine. Get outta here.”

Now it feels natural to lean down over John and kiss him, just dry lips clinging to dry lips.

When Martin exits the room, he’s only just closed the door when he recognizes Douglas’ form further up the hall. Douglas turns at the sound of the closing door, and Martin tries to look as if he’s got nothing to hide. He’s in the middle of the hallway, and Douglas didn’t turn until the door was closed, so Douglas has no way of knowing which room he just came out of. Martin tells himself this, but it doesn’t help.

When he catches up to Douglas, who’s waiting for him now at the end of the hall, he has no idea what to say. Under pressure, he can’t remember what kinds of things he usually says to Douglas in situations like this. Which is to say: normal, everyday situations. Everything that comes to mind feels overly formal and awkward.

“Hey.”

“Good morning, _Captain_. You look particularly well-rested this morning, if a bit tongue-tied.”

“Do I? That’s–” Martin pauses, mouth working fruitlessly. “…odd.”

“Yes, you are _quite_ odd, I agree. Perhaps we can discuss it over breakfast?” Douglas gestures for Martin to precede him through the hall.

Martin avoids conversation with Douglas over breakfast by means of a newspaper. It’s a Norwegian newspaper, true, but it still does the trick. Douglas already thinks he’s acting oddly, so there’s no harm in taking it further.

When John appears at the breakfast buffet, it’s only to wrap a couple of pieces of toast in a napkin and fill two paper cups with coffee: one black, one with two sugars.

“Captain Crieff? The inspector’s here.”

“Oh! Of course.” Martin folds up the newspaper and stands. “Dr. Watson and Mr. Holmes are investigating an–”

John coughs into his fist.

“…um, _incident_ with a charter flight,” Martin explains for Douglas. “They’ve asked me to consult.”

Douglas looks from Martin to John and back again, eyes narrowing. “I _see_.”

John starts to reach for Martin, then pulls his hand back again. “I think they’re ready to go.”

Martin pulls his coat on and follows, avoiding Douglas’ gaze.

### Tromsø Airfield, 1st March, 9:56 a.m.

The AIB investigator disappoints Sherlock right from the start. She’s in her mid-thirties, severely dressed in a badly cut pantsuit, blonde hair twisted back into a painfully tight bun. She unlocks the hangar where the wreckage is being stored, but there’s nothing to see. Everything is too badly burnt, even for Sherlock to make something of. But the investigator isn’t as keen as Sherlock to find a malicious cause for the crash. It’s simply pilot error, she thinks. Sherlock demands access to the airfield manager, and the investigator only reluctantly acquiesces.

When Sherlock and John are in the manager’s office questioning him, Martin finds himself left outside it with the investigator, and that’s fine with him. He’s got no expertise to offer in interrogation, but he still has questions about the crash. It’s been stewing in his mind all night, the fact that the King Air was so far off course during its final descent.

“Has the [VOR](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHF_omnidirectional_range) here been tested?”

The investigator is unimpressed. “We have a test flight scheduled this afternoon, but as you know, there have been numerous flights in and out of this airport since the crash. You flew in yourself without problems, did you not?”

“Yes. Yes, you’re right.” Martin slumps back in his red plastic chair. She’s right, but it still doesn’t make _sense_.

And then– It comes to him in a flash: what must have happened _and_ how to prove it. He’s on his feet and gone almost before the investigator notices. (And even when she does, she doesn’t protest, just frowns and rolls her eyes.)

Martin’s running with his phone clutched to his ear, excitement bubbling up under his skin. When Douglas finally answers, Martin is breathing hard.

“Douglas!”

“What are you _doing_ , Martin?”

“Yesterday– This is important. Just answer–”

“I would if you’d _ask_ already.”

“Yesterday on our approach did you calculate the radial from the VOR?”

“Of course I did, Martin. It’s _protocol_ , as I know very well that _you_ know. What’s this about?”

“Doesn’t matter. Nothing. I’ve got to go.” He ends the call and shoves his phone into his pocket along with his hands. He’s just left the airfield’s office building, and it’s _freezing_ outside, particularly since he left his coat and gloves in the office. But Gertie’s hangar is close, and he has the keys. She’s not any warmer on the inside, but Martin doesn’t notice. It’s the VOR indicator that he’s focused on. He struggles to get his cold, dry fingers to register on the touchscreen of his phone so that he can take a picture of it, and then he struggles more to do the calculations quickly with a pencil (the pen won’t work, it’s so cold) on the title page of the flight manual. The recording from ATC will _confirm_ the heading they actually flew in on, but Martin remembers it, and it takes him just five minutes of scratching out the numbers to convince himself that the discrepancy is real and precisely wrong: just inside ten kilometres to the west of Tromsø airport.

When his phone rings, he jumps.

“John?”

“Where are you?”

“In Gertie. I’ve figured it out. They were flying by their instruments, remember? Because the weather was poor. So that means they were navigating by–” Martin stops because John is speaking, but he’s not speaking to Martin, and it’s faint.

“…Gertie…it’s the plane, Sherlock, the name of the plane.” A pause. “I don’t know.”

And then John’s back on the line. “Did anyone see you go? Or follow you?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter? I’ve figured–” His phone vibrates so hard it nearly jumps out of his hand. “Douglas is calling me. I hung up on him earlier, so I should probably answer.”

“ _Martin_ –”

Martin cuts off John’s protest by switching over to Douglas’ call.

“Douglas?”

“Martin, what are you _doing_? You can’t just hang up on me after a cryptic phone call about VOR radials when you’ve clearly just been running somewhere.”

“Everything’s fine, Douglas, not to worry. I can’t tell you about it, not yet, but I can explain later, just–” A movement catches Martin’s eye through the windscreen: a man, taller than John, dark-haired but far burlier than Sherlock. Both of his hands are shoved deep in the pockets of his parka, which isn’t unusual given the cold, but something about him and the way he’s _slinking_ along the hangar wall makes it feel like the end of Martin’s spine is curling in on itself. His first instinct is to crouch down, out of sight, but the man doesn’t appear to be looking in his direction, and any movement might draw his eye right to Martin. It’s an impossible situation.

And Douglas is still on the line. “Martin? Are you still there?”

“Yes,” Martin whispers. “Douglas, I need you to call John.”

“John?”

“Doctor Watson. I’ll text you the number. Tell him I think someone _has_ followed me.”

“Where are you, Martin?”

“Just tell him. I’ve got to go so I can look up the number to text you.”

Martin hangs up and with surprisingly steady (but still very cold) hands manages to copy and paste John’s number into a text message to Douglas. The ding of the sent message sound effect makes him jump. He can’t see the hangar-slinker anymore, so he edges his way into the flight deck locker. When he hears Gertie’s main hatch open, he resists the urge to call out and see if it’s John because what if it’s _not John_.

It’s not John. The slinker’s heavy footfalls come into the flight deck, then retreat to search the cabin, then return.

There is what Martin assumes is Norwegian swearing, and then there’s the terrible, miserable sound of a gun being cocked. The locker door is wrenched open. He’d been clutching desperately at the inside latch, but it wasn’t meant to be a handhold, and it slips from his fingers easily.

Martin finds that he has nothing to say to a gun pointed in his face, nor to the man holding it. He can’t even look at it directly, but he can’t let it out of his sight, either, so he tracks it with his head turned to the side in a frozen, cowering flinch.

The gunman makes a phone call, and Martin can’t understand a word, but he can understand the gun still aimed at his head, and that doesn’t retract. Also frustrating (and embarrassing) is an increasingly pressing need to urinate, but at least that gives him something else to concentrate on.

The sound of the gunshot, when it comes, is deafening, and Martin’s first thought is that he must have died instantaneously because he feels no pain. But then the urge to urinate returns with tidal force, and it’s clear that he’s still in his body. He’s still whole, but so is the gunman, and the gun is still in his face, although it’s not angled so precisely because the gunman has turned, looking for the source of the gunshot.

The imperfect aim of the gun over his right shoulder is inspiring. It’s a matter of angles, really. The gun can be _touching_ him, but as long as it’s not pointed _at_ him (and, at a much lower level of priority, not pointed at any of Gertie’s essential parts), it doesn’t matter. So Martin lunges forward, latching onto the gunman’s arm and tucking it under his armpit so that the gun is aimed behind him. The gunman stumbles and nearly falls back, but Martin moves with him, still clutching hard at his arm. The pair of them careen around the flight deck, ping-ponging against the seats and the locker and the open hatch.

And then in the blink of an eye, it’s over. John is there, the gunman is separated from his gun and after a short scuffle, knocked unconscious.

“John!”

John’s hands are all over him, methodical and sure. “You’re not hurt?”

Martin shakes his head and scrambles to his feet, then lurches towards the loo. He’s almost shaking too hard to aim properly, but he manages to relieve himself (and what a _relief_ ).

John is waiting for him when he emerges, hands clasped behind his back. He’s at rest, relaxed. The gunman is propped up against the flight deck locker, wrists and ankles bound in zip ties.

“Did you just vomit?”

Martin ducks his head. “No.”

“Ah. Well. That’s normal too. Come here.” John’s hands are reaching for him, and Martin steps into them without hesitation. John checks him over again more slowly.

“You’re sure you’re not hurt anywhere?”

“No, really, I’m fine.”

“Except for being nearly blue with cold. You’re a prize idiot, running out of the office without your coat in this weather. We’re above the Arctic Circle, and it’s _winter_ , you twit.” John rubs Martin’s back vigorously to emphasize his point. “I think we’d better wait here for Sherlock and the police, but we need to warm you up. Can you turn the power on? Find an emergency blanket?”

Martin switches on the APU and directs John to the blankets in the overheads. John wraps him up tightly in two of them and then wraps himself around Martin too, delivering long strokes from his tailbone to shoulder blades and tucking his cheek in next to Martin’s.

“I’m sorry about getting you into this. I never intended for you to be in any danger.”

Martin pulls back to look at John, who looks like he’s forcing himself to hold Martin’s gaze.

There are lots of things that Martin wants to say in response: it’s not really John’s fault; Martin is the one who ran off without telling John where he was going; and in any case Martin knew (from John’s blog) what he was getting himself into, joining him and Sherlock on the case. But Martin says none of these things because as much as he wants to say them, there’s something that he wants to _do_ with far greater urgency. He leans forward and kisses John, missing his mouth at first because he can’t aim with his arms trapped in the blanket, but after a moment John helps, and it’s perfect. They stay pressed together, sharing breath and closing their eyes against the world. They stay until there’s a sound at the hatch, and they jump apart. John recovers first and leans in again, mumbling into Martin's mouth, “Probably just Sherlock.”

But it’s Douglas.

“Martin!”

They spring apart again, and John winces, mouthing “Sorry” before he turns to face Douglas, keeping an arm wrapped around Martin’s waist from the side.

“Douglas! I– We–” Martin’s voice comes out low and raspy, and he clears his throat.

Douglas isn’t actually staring at John and Martin so much, but it’s a moment before either of them remembers the thug passed out cold on the floor of the flight deck. The gun in particular seems to hold Douglas’ attention; he squats down and reaches out for it.

“What the hell happened here?”

John stops Douglas from picking up the gun. “Don’t worry about that. I’ve taken out the clip and emptied the chamber already.”

“And who knocked out the goon? Martin?”

“No, um, John did.” Douglas looks John up and down, lifting a skeptical eyebrow. John crosses his arms over his chest and pulls his shoulders back.

“Okay.” Douglas stretches out the word, and he stands up again, eyes flicking between Martin and John, then back to the goon, then back to them. “You’ve explained two things to me now, but there’s still about a thousand things going on here that I don’t understand.”

And that’s when Sherlock arrives on the scene, bursting in and pushing past Douglas without a second glance. He roots through the criminal’s pockets until he finds a wallet and hums with approval when he examines the man’s ID. “Yes, perfect,” he mutters. Standing up, he pulls his coat tighter around himself and directs his attention on Martin.

“The police are on their way. I’ve got the who and the why now, so what about the how?”

Martin resists the urge to look around for someone else that Sherlock could be addressing; it’s obvious that he’s the one expected to answer. “How much do you know about air navigation?”

Sherlock waves a hand impatiently and glances over at John. “Just assume the worst.” John glares.

“Okay, well.” Martin shuffles over to the instrument panel and frees one hand from the blankets wrapped around him to point at one of the panel’s many dials. “This is the VOR indicator. VOR stands for very high frequency omnidirectional range. It’s the primary method of navigation under instrument flight rules, and we know the King Air was flying under IFR. We also know that they lost airspeed and stalled when they were off course to the west of the airport, a bit less than ten kilometres off course. VOR is very reliable; there’s very little loss of accuracy from diffraction over uneven terrain, and the phase encoding is robust in all weather conditions.”

“So their VOR was tampered with?” John asks.

“No, not their VOR indicator. The airport’s beacon. If I had to guess, I’d say somehow the frequency of the secondary signal was modified. VOR depends on calculating the precise timing between the master signal and the secondary, and the secondary is supposed to cycle at 30 Hertz. Change it just a bit, and all the projected radials from the beacon will shift. That’s what I came here to confirm, because even though we weren’t flying under IFR when we came in yesterday, Douglas calculated our radial from the VOR as a back-up. It’s protocol. And it didn’t match the heading we got from ATC, which is normal, actually, because ATC headings aren’t always direct, depending on the traffic coming into the airport, but I did the calculations–” Martin drops the blankets and frees his hands completely to tear out the title page of the flight manual and hand it to Sherlock. “If we’d approached on the radial from the VOR we would have ended up just inside ten kilometres to the west of the airport. That’s exactly what happened to the King Air pilots. They were too far west, and they were heading into the foothills, so I think what happened is they were lost, and then suddenly they were also too close the ground. Their ground proximity warning went off, and in the confusion when they were trying to figure out how their elevation had dropped so rapidly they neglected to maintain airspeed, and they stalled, and then they crashed.”

Douglas and John both look slightly confused, but Sherlock is actually _smiling_. “And that’s the _how_ , I think,” he says. “Very good.”

### Tromsø, 1st March, 6:22 p.m.

It was a long time before they’d got back to the hotel, to John’s room. The Norwegian police had arrived on the scene, and the process of giving statements was prolonged by the need for a translator. The explanation of the who and the why was Sherlock’s prerogative, and he provided—at _length_ —but Martin only caught some of it. Something about an imminent alliance between British Petroleum and Norway’s Statoil to drill in what were once native Saami lands (but outside of the Finnmark, whatever that was). The gunman, who turned out to be the airfield engineer, was one of these Saami, and presumably he was the one responsible for tampering with the VOR beacon. The complicated mechanism of the murder was motivated by the political complications of an overt assassination. It had been necessary— _very_ necessary—for it to look like an accident. (And a good job, Martin thought, since from a certain perspective it still looked that way, even with the sabotage. A better pilot would not have been so distracted as to stall out and crash.)

How the gunman found Martin and whence the gunshot that had distracted said gunman, these facts remained something of a mystery, probably because Douglas had drawn Martin aside after he’d given his statement.

“How, Martin, honestly _how_ did you get yourself mixed up in all of this?”

“Um.” They were at the back of Gertie, far away from the others. “I _was_ going to tell you, I just couldn’t work out how to make it not sound…weird.”

“Weird?”

“Remember our conversation on that descent over Paris?”

Douglas nodded.

“John– Doctor Watson. He’s the– It was him–”

“John Watson is Mr. Sex-Twice-on-the-First-Date?”

Martin had apparently warmed up enough to blush. “Yes, well– Yes.”

Douglas frowned. “Martin, it seems you think that that _explains_ everything, but let me tell you: it doesn’t, not at all.”

And then the conversation was cut short by John, pulling at Martin’s elbow to get his attention.

Later, back at the hotel, he’s still buzzing pleasantly when John playfully pushes him inside his room and closes the door behind them. Coming down from this adrenaline high has left Martin shaky but also lighter than air. The stupid grin stretching his cheeks is starting to ache, but he can’t help it. Maybe he’s getting used to it, because it isn’t like after St. Petersburg, after the “goose smoothie.” Martin isn’t hard yet because his blood is busy elsewhere, pulsing through his veins, thrumming under his skin at the temples. It’s intoxicating, and it makes him bold. Once John has shut the door, Martin pushes him back against it and attacks his mouth, his hands stealing under John’s jumper, then worming around to pull his vest from where it’s tucked into the waistband of his trousers so that he can slide his hands up underneath.

Martin is consumed by a screaming need to get closer, to touch, to press skin against skin, and it’s not long before his fingers wandering over the hot skin of John’s stomach isn’t enough. With a quick yank he draws John’s vest and jumper up, trapping John’s arms and head in a tangle of slightly sweat-damp wool and cotton. A final tug frees John’s head and shoulders and leaves him bare from the waist up, but the action has an effect like that on a marionette with cut strings: John slumps back against the door, eyes shut tight against the world, against _Martin_.

It only takes Martin a moment. “Oh,” he says, voice trailing off into nothing more than a harsh exhalation. Without consciously making the decision to do so, he stretches out his right hand to touch. John makes no noise at first, when Martin’s index and middle fingertips are just barely tracing the outline of the scar from the entry wound, smooth and slightly shiny and pinkish-white in hue. But when Martin’s fingers slide up and then make to slide down the back of his shoulder to explore there, to feel for an exit wound, John tenses and whispers. “Don’t. Please.”

There’s a thread of something desperately unhappy and pleading in John’s voice, so Martin backs away, raising his hands with fingers spread and palms exposed.

John sighs loudly and looks up at the ceiling. His hands are clenched at his sides. Martin takes another step back and accidentally runs into the bed. Startled, he falls back on it, arms windmilling and an undignified yelp escaping his mouth.

John makes a sound that starts out sounding like half a sob, but it quickly transmutes into laughter. Martin catches it, and soon they are both giggling uncontrollably, Martin lying sideways on the bed with his legs dangling off it, John now half-collapsed in a crouch against the door, his hands resting on his knees.

Martin recovers first and props himself up on his elbows so that he can meet John’s eyes when he recovers after another small collection of moments. It’s odd an thing, how intense the connection can be through eye contact alone. Even the phrase ‘eye contact’ is a metaphor of sorts, but it feels very, very non-metaphorical in this moment with John.

And then John is joining Martin on the bed, lying down next to him and tugging at his jumper until Martin sits up to pull it off, shucking his belt and pulling off his shoes and socks at the same time. He lies down and folds his hands over his stomach, tipping his head to the side to watch John, also shucking belt and boots and socks.

The elephant in the room is poisoning the air when John lies down again, facing Martin on his right side, exposing his left shoulder directly to Martin’s line of sight. Martin reaches out again to touch. He smooths a hand up over John’s side, starting at his hip and stopping just short of the wound, palm resting over a nipple peaking slightly from the chill of the room.

“Whatever happened doesn’t matter,” Martin starts, and John’s forehead crinkles in a frown as he tenses. “No, no, that’s not what I meant. Of course it _matters_. It matters to you, and it matters to me that it matters to you, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t want to tell me about it.” Martin pauses. “Or if you do. I’m just–” John is relaxing by increments, his body before his face. Martin dares to slide his hand up further, covers the scar with his fingers. “I’m not asking, that’s what I’m trying to say.”

John nods, blinking rapidly, and then he’s pulling at Martin’s neck with one hand and at his hip with the other, pulling until Martin is on top of him and they’re kissing messily. It’s frantic and urgent and all-consuming, and after a minute they’re both completely naked without Martin even remembering how they got there.

“I want you,” John says, muffled into Martin’s cheek, his knees drawing up to squeeze Martin about the ribs.

Martin grunts in what he hopes is interpreted as affirmation and rolls his hips into John’s for good measure. He could easily be satisfied with this, just skin and skin and skin and their cocks nestled tight together, but John apparently does have _other_ ideas because now he’s breaking away, stretching an arm back to root around in the bedside table.

“Have you gone–” John interrupts himself by catching Martin’s bottom lip between his teeth and _pulling_ at it. “…to get tested yet?”

Martin tucks his face into John’s neck under the cover of applying his lips under John’s jaw and sucking hard. “Yes,” he mumbles there. “It was all negative.”

“Excellent.” John squirms and nudges until Martin lifts his head to look him in the eye. “Me too. So this is all you’ll need.” He pushes a small bottle of lube into Martin’s hand.

Martin just stares for a moment, first at the bottle and then at John. “Oh. You want _me_ to–?”

John hums, dropping his legs from around Martin’s waist and pressing his heels into the mattress so that he can push up instead, arching his whole body. “Please.”

Martin sits up onto his heels, kneeling between John’s legs and glancing again at the bottle in his hand. “Are you sure you want this tonight? I mean, you haven’t before. It takes a great deal of preparation, the first time. Or it should.”

“Do you want to?”

“I–” Martin can’t look away from John’s steel-blue stare, open and unafraid. He swallows roughly, trying to tamp down on his own nervousness. As much as this is a first for John Watson, it’s also a first for him because he’s never been anyone else’s _first_ before; he’s never even penetrated a partner before they’d penetrated him. But he can’t deny that this is something he wants, and John’s openness mutely demands reciprocation, so he answers with the truth: “Yes.”

“Good, because I want you all around me. And inside me.” John speaks this last into Martin’s ear, having pulled him down again with a hand at his nape. Martin shudders, his hips twitching against John’s. He lets John take his mouth in a deep, searching kiss that quickly has him curling his toes against the intensity of his arousal. When John releases him, he slides down and rests for a full minute, panting into John’s chest. John’s hands card through his hair gently, searching out and unravelling the occasional tangle. When he’s caught his breath, Martin slides down further, nudging John’s thighs wider apart and slicking up two fingers from the bottle of lube.

He works from a kneel, the better to keep an eye on John. At the first ghosting touch of the pads of his fingertips over puckered skin, John’s mouth falls open, and he rubs his palms over the sheets, clearly needing some outlet to movement but trying to stay still where it counts.

Martin works one finger in fairly easily, and he moves it gently in and out, not aiming to stretch yet, just letting John get accustomed to the feeling. When John’s regained control of his mouth, closing it with a click and then licking his lips and shifting his hips impatiently, then Martin introduces a second finger, bringing his other hand to John’s cock to play with his foreskin and distract him from the stretch. With tiny pulsing thrusts, he works his two fingers in to the last knuckles, and then as he’s drawing them out again he seeks out John’s prostate, rubbing gently with his fingertips to either side of it. John groans and claws at the sheets.

When Martin introduces a third finger, he leans down to take the head of John’s cock into his mouth, sucking lightly and circling his tongue around the crown.

“Fuck, Martin,” John whines. “Please.”

After minutes of slow, teasing stretching, Martin pulls off and withdraws his fingers. John’s lifted his head off the bed, and he’s reaching for Martin, so Martin goes. John’s tongue in his mouth is sloppy and a bit desperate. John circles his legs around Martin’s waist and pulls him in tightly.

“Not like this,” Martin says, pulling away to speak. “It’s not a good angle, if you’re not used to it.”

“How then?”

“Turn over, or on your side.”

John closes his eyes and exhales through his nose. Martin’s just about to ask what’s wrong when John rolls over onto his right side, eyes still shut tight. Martin moves quickly to lube himself up and curl around John, pressing John’s top leg forward so that he can nestle his prick between John’s arse cheeks, precisely positioned at his entrance but not yet pushing in. Then he moves to press his upper body in close to John’s, and that’s when he sees it: the messy, jagged starburst of scars at the back of John’s shoulder. The exit wound. He presses forward anyway and ducks to drop a kiss to the top of John’s shoulder, a mere inch from the outer edge of the scarring.

“Is this okay?”

John doesn’t answer right away, so Martin pecks a line of kisses up the side of John’s neck and then tucks his chin over John’s shoulder, waiting.

John relaxes all at once, as if he’s forcing himself. He lays a hand over Martin’s, slung around his middle, and presses back. “Come _on_.”

“Okay.” Martin smiles into John’s skin and extricates his hand to reach down and hold himself steady as he begins to push inside. He pushes in slowly but steadily, bringing his arm back up to hold John as soon as his prick is firmly seated. Once his hips are flush with John’s arse, he pauses, hugging John tightly.

“How’s that?”

John pushes back against Martin experimentally and moans. He tugs at Martin’s hand, pulling it down to his half-hard cock, using his own hand to brace against the bed. “Move, please.”

Martin settles into a steady rhythm of gentle thrusts, pulling out as he draws his fist up to the head of John’s cock and pushing in when he draws it down to the base. When he finds the stroke that grazes John’s prostate, John jerks violently, very nearly banging his head into Martin’s.

“Good?”

John just moans and hitches his leg up more, encouraging Martin deeper. Martin complies, letting go of John’s cock to clutch at John’s hip and drive into him harder.

When John comes, he arches back, and Martin ends up with a mouthful of scarred shoulder, but in the throes of his orgasm John doesn’t seem to mind. The tight clench of John’s arse spurs Martin’s hips into a stuttering non-rhythm he can’t quite control until his orgasm breaks over him on a particularly deep thrust, and he’s digging his fingers into John’s hip. Coming back to himself in stages, he mouths at the skin under his lips, subconsciously tracing the contours and ridges of the scar with the tip of his tongue. When he realises what he’s doing, he wills his lips and tongue to stillness.

John draws in a deep breath and breaks the silence on his exhale. “You’re fine. You’re amazing, in fact. Fantastic.”

Martin disengages as gently as he can and flops onto his back, pulling John half on top of him. John rests his head on Martin’s chest and busies himself drawing small circles around one of his nipples. Eventually the movements of his fingers slow and his breathing deepens. Martin stretches out the leg John isn’t half draped over and fumbles for the edge of the duvet with his toes, pulling it up over them. Despite the excitement of the day and his gale-force orgasm, sleep doesn’t come to him. He lies awake, contemplating the mystery of John Watson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many of the [details](http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2003/03/03_zdechlikm_wellstone/) of the plane crash mystery are based on [the 2002 crash of a Beechcraft King Air A100 in Eveleth, Minnesota](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wellstone#Death), which resulted in eight fatalities, including the pilot, copilot, and MN Senator Paul Wellstone, although I should note that there was no sabotage or foul play involved in that accident according to [the official NTSB aircraft accident report](http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2003/AAR0303.pdf).
> 
> Wikipedia's article on VOR systems is [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHF_omnidirectional_range), and here's [another useful little piece](http://www.aviationchatter.com/2009/03/how-vors-really-work/) about how VOR works, for the curious.


	4. (without a reply) gravity fails me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Falling is only like flying for the one doing the falling. For John Watson, watching, it's like drowning, and for Martin Crieff, in the aftermath, it's the earth opening up under your feet, leaving you standing on nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've switched to not using archive warnings because I've no idea if _canonical_ (apparent) major character death should count for the archive warning. No deaths here except those that (appear to) happen in canon.

### Gertie, 2nd March, 2:22 p.m.

After the intimacy of the night before and the morning after, when they’d finally been able to have a sleepy lie-in wrapped around each other in the twilight-like gloom of early morning in Scandinavian winter, it’s odd to be flying home on the same plane but not _together_.

John is sitting with Sherlock, of course, and Martin is on the flight deck with Douglas, _flying the plane_. John is trying to avoid thinking about what Martin and Douglas are talking about, what Martin might be saying about him. There’s undoubtedly a lot to tell.

But as it turns out, John needn’t worry. After the pre-flight checks, the flight deck is pointedly silent, and then Douglas clears his throat.

“I’m sure you have questions,” Martin begins. “But not now, Douglas.”

“Oh?”

“He’s sitting not ten feet from us.”

Douglas looks over. Frowns.

“It’s _weird_. And wrong. Really kind of wrong, to talk about him…”

“Oh, all right.” Douglas sighs.

When they’re beginning their descent, Douglas makes the cabin address.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen. This is your first officer speaking. We are now beginning our descent over Fitton. We should be touching down in about twenty minutes.”

Douglas pauses.

“I also want to take a moment to… Well, the thing is, I have a daughter, a lovely daughter, but I’ve no sons of my own, and I must admit that your Captain, Mr. _Crieff_ , has become, in some ways, rather like a son to me. He certainly inspires the protective instinct. I’m absolutely certain that you’re intelligent enough to read between the lines of what I’m trying to say here, so I’ll just leave it at that. Our flight attendant will now bore you with the instructions to prepare for landing.”

“Thanks, Douglas!” Arthur takes over and directs Sherlock and John to be sure that their tray tables and seat backs are themselves upright and locked, not to mention their electronics powered themselves off and stowed.

John spends the final twenty minutes of the flight amusing himself with imagining exactly how deep a shade of indignant red Martin’s face had turned as a result of that cabin address and what he might have said to Douglas in response.

### Fitton, 18th March, 4:53 p.m.

It’s a couple of weeks before John makes it back to Fitton, but this time it’s a different kind of hiatus between visits: they keep in touch mainly by text message, which isn’t much, or at least it doesn’t seem that it should be, but somehow it works. Somehow it’s enough.

“I think you owe me something for this,” Harry observes, watching John smile at his mobile and thumb out a long response. “A nice dinner out, perhaps.”

“Hmm.”

“Or perhaps a Rolex. Or a Ferrari.”

“Yes, whatever you like,” John replies absently.

When John finally turns his attention back to Harry, she’s studying him intently.

“What are you on about?”

“You and Martin. I fully expected you to get a leg over, but I didn’t expect–” Harry unwraps one of her hands from her mug of tea and waves it in his direction. “This. You. Smitten. Or something like it.”

John doesn’t answer, and Harry laughs. “Not going to argue the point, then? Quite right. I haven’t seen you like this since you met Sherlock.”

“Harry!”

“Don’t argue with me. Whatever you two have isn’t _sexual_. I know that. But it was still love at first sight when you met him, and you love him, in a way.”

“When I don’t want to strangle him.”

“ _Because_ you want to strangle him.”

“That’s _absolutely_ true,” John answers, thinking about Baskerville, about the sugar, and that’s a betrayal with some sting left in it since it’s only been a few days. In truth, he’s come to Fitton now not only to see Martin, but also to get away from Sherlock. Maybe he should feel bad about that, but he doesn’t, not really.

A five-hour delay in Münster costs John and Martin their dinner plans but gains Harry a meal out on John. Harry drops John at Martin’s afterwards, and Zadie lets John in.

“Good to see you again.”

“Likewise.”

“Tea?”

“Cuppa’d be great, thanks.”

It’s not uncomfortable, sitting at the kitchen table and letting Zadie make him tea in Martin’s house without Martin there, but Zadie _is_ looking at John as if she’s steeling herself to make a speech.

“I’ve no intentions of hurting him, you know,” John preempts.

“All the same.” Zadie shrugs and sets John’s tea down in front of him rather forcefully.

“How long have you known him?” John asks.

“I’ve been living here for about three and a half years.”

“I don’t imagine you’ve given this speech before, then.”

“No, but that’s part of the problem isn’t? Losing you’ll be harder for him than it might have been, if he was the kind of– If he’d been around the block a bit more.”

“I’ve no intention of letting him go.”

Zadie shrugs. “He’s got terrible luck, if you haven’t noticed. Something could happen. Something will probably happen. I know enough to know that neither of your lives is simple.”

* * *

John is still awake, in Martin’s bed, when Martin returns in the small hours of the morning. Martin stubs his toe against a chair leg when he’s trying to settle in. He swears under his breath and hops around on one foot.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh– Yes, yes, I’m fine. Sorry to wake you. I was _trying_ not to.”

“It’s fine.” John’s voice comes out sleepier—deep and quiet—than it should given that he’s not actually slept a wink. “I wasn’t asleep.”

“You weren’t?”

Martin’s not moving anymore, judging by the lack of sound, and John has the uncomfortable feeling that Martin’s just staring at him despite—or perhaps _through_ —the pitch darkness of the room. When Martin stirs again after a minute, it’s a relief. And when Martin slides into bed next to him, it’s a comfort (even with Martin’s cold feet brushing his shins). Martin being there doesn’t make John’s mind any less troubled, but somehow he drops off to sleep in a moment of lapsed attention.

John wakes feeling as though he hadn’t slept since he doesn’t remember the falling-asleep, and he wakes straight from a dream, a dream about searching and running and falling falling falling, and it’s a pair of minutes before he’s able to piece together the light coming from the skylight in Martin’s attic and the custard yellow sheets and the disconcerting steep slope of the wall and roof above him. There’s a sketchy memory of Martin hopping around on one foot and sliding into bed with him, feet cold, but John has the bed to himself now. He shakes his head and presses the heels of his hands over his eyes and rubs, trying to press some sense and reason and clarity into his brain, but it doesn’t make any more sense when he drops them away again, blinking in the bright sunlight.

Coffee. Surely coffee will help.

The kitchen is empty when he makes his way downstairs, but there’s half a pot of coffee already brewed in the machine. John opens cupboards, three of them, until he finds mugs, and then he pours himself a cup. He drinks half of it down, scalding and burnt-tasting, before he even steps away from in front of the machine, and he doesn’t notice Martin enter the kitchen from the sitting room just beyond.

Martin’s fingers at his waist register first: slightly tentative, but still pulling him back and turning him to face Martin so that he can lean in for a (morning-breath-sour) kiss. Martin pulls away again with a badly hidden tiny grimace.

“Morning,” Martin murmurs and turns away to rustle in a different cupboard from where John found the mugs. He turns back, now grasping a tin.

“Sugar?” he offers.

“No,” John answers, frowning. And then, as an afterthought, “Thanks.”

“You don’t take sugar in your coffee?”

“No. I don’t.”

John moves to the fridge and opens the door, sipping from his coffee as he surveys the contents. It’s not a big thing, of course, Martin not knowing how he takes his coffee (although surely he could have extrapolated from the evidence of his tea-drinking preferences, had he just _thought_ for a few seconds).

John closes the fridge door, inhales deeply, and turns back to Martin. “So,” he asks, “What did you want to do today?”

Martin has a van job, as it turns out. Just a quick furniture delivery: pick up a bed and a worn Chesterfield and drop them at a second-hand shop. John volunteers to help, but his heart’s not in it. Truthfully, he’s still feeling off, after his only marginally _not_ sleepless night and the disappointment of waking up in an empty bed. Although perhaps that’s to Martin’s credit, a sign that he feels John belongs in his space enough to be trusted alone in it.

During the job, they don’t talk beyond the necessary: “Which end do you want?” “Hold on a second.” “A little to your right.” “Watch that step.”

John pays for a late pub lunch, fish and chips and a cold pint of Boddington’s for each of them that he had hoped might energise him but only makes him even more desperate for sleep. He’s too tired to notice Martin side-eyeing him warily and sitting stiffly in his seat, and he’s too tired to rein himself back from snapping in response to Martin’s “So that business in Dartmoor sounded very exciting.”

“Oh yes, as _exciting_ as you can imagine. Watching Dr. Frankland step on a land mine is on my list of life highlights right up next to pronouncing soldiers dead after a middle-of-the-night IED explosion.”

Martin startles. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean– It must have been terrifying. I’m sorry.”

John shakes his head a little and fiddles with one of the cardboard coasters on the bar, damp and sticky with beer. He doesn’t speak again for several uncomfortable minutes, and when he does, it’s just to ask if Martin is finished and suggest that it’s time for them to leave.

They leave.

When they’re back at Martin’s, John’s mood hasn’t improved, and Martin is painfully obviously walking on eggshells around him, which only makes it _worse_ , so John retreats again and goes to the attic for a nap. He strips down to his pants in the waning light of the day and folds himself back into the bed he rose from alone just that morning. He can only smell himself on the pillows and sheets; there’s no trace that Martin ever crawled into the bed, at least not that he can detect.

When John wakes, it’s full dark, but the room isn’t. There’s a bright circle of illumination provided from a goosenecked desk lamp, accompanied by Martin, hunched over his desk, shoulders tense and curved over. He’s pulling at his bottom lip with one hand, and his other is hovering over the corner of a page, waiting to turn it. John hasn’t made any noise that he can recall, but Martin somehow senses that he’s woken and turns slowly on the chair. The desk chair is cheap, and it creaks unpleasantly, causing Martin to press his lips tight in a frown. He doesn’t say anything.

John doesn’t particularly have anything to say, either, but the silence is approaching intolerable, so he clears his throat.

“Come here?”

Martin rises from the chair, smoothing the corner of the page he’d been fiddling with back to flatness before he goes. He crosses the room and lowers himself to his knees on the bed, then to his side, facing John but lying atop the duvet, separated from John beneath it.

As seems to be becoming his habit, Martin’s fingers reach out and touch down first over John’s scar, tracing. John closes his eyes and clenches his teeth. He’s infinitely grateful that Martin continues not to ask, but at the same time he wants Martin to _understand_ , or, failing that to _know_ (because _understanding_ is surely impossible, or _Martin_ understanding is, at least). But Martin won’t ask because John told him not to ask and because he’s a man of his word and because he might honestly, truly not be bothered by the not knowing, and that’s the worst of it, because if he _knew_ then he would be bothered by the idea of not knowing, but John can’t just _tell_ him because it’s not the kind of thing that’s told. It’s not a heroic story, and there’s so much that needs to be explained (although from a certain point of view, it’s incredibly, stupidly _simple_ ).

Suddenly Martin’s face is tucking in under John’s chin so that he can mouth at John’s collarbone connecting to his other shoulder, his good one, and that’s such a surprise that John jerks back. And he immediately regrets it and throws an arm over his eyes and face. Hiding. He’s always hiding.

Martin settles back onto his side and waits, watching cautiously.

Eventually John pulls his arm back from his face, but he doesn’t turn to Martin. He turns away instead, scooting back just enough to feel the heat radiating from Martin’s body even though they’re not touching. He curls in on himself and closes his eyes but doesn’t relax. When Martin extends a hand to brush over John’s ribs, John tenses, and so Martin draws it back. Then there’s rustling (Martin getting himself under the duvet), and then no sound at all.

### 221B Baker St., London, 15 April, 10:02 a.m.

John categorically does not believe in the supernatural. He doesn’t believe in premonitions or even intuition. Hindsight, all of it. In hindsight, he snatched up Sherlock’s laptop and hailed a taxi and tracked that GPS symbol the evening after their first meeting because he was frustrated, because he’d had it to the teeth with the (pathetic) life of a [redacted] veteran, because Sherlock offered danger and excitement and the chance to feel _effective_. He did _not_ do it because he “knew” that Sherlock was in danger, or about to be in danger.

“I’ll get it, shall I?” Before he’s even out of his chair, there’s a pull like a cord stretched tight from his navel to the floor. And that’s not a premonition, it’s just what he knew—truly _knew_ —was going to happen, one day. Eventually. Today, apparently.

> Come and play. Tower Hill. Jim Moriarty x.

“Here.” He crosses the room and offers the phone to Sherlock.

(“Not now, I’m busy.”)

“Sherlock.”

(“Not now.”)

“He’s _back_.”

When John goes to his bedroom to dress (quickly, since they’re due at Tower Hill), Martin is just stepping out from his turn in the shower. “You know,” he starts, “I forgot to tell you about how Douglas actually did manage to steal the whiskey that time. Paris.” He cheerfully dries himself and babbles on about Mr. Birling and Douglas while John sinks onto the foot of the bed and stares blankly at the wall ahead, where the wallpaper is curling up just _slightly_ from age and humidity.

“John?”

“Hmm?”

For a beat, Martin doesn’t respond, and then John pokes him in the knee.

“Oh, um.” Martin is looking not _at_ him, but _into_ him. “Did something happen?”

And that’s a shock: Martin asking a question like that is Martin understanding him, seeing something in him that he’s not even sure of himself because right now he’s just numb and hollow, like his voice to Sherlock, still echoing in his own head, ricocheting like a bullet in a tunnel: “He’s back.”

“Moriarty,” John finally croaks.

Martin stops in the middle of buttoning up his shirt, leaving it gaping halfway down his chest and untucked. (In other circumstances, John would find this very distracting.) “Moriarty. Moriarty, the insane nutter who kidnapped you?”

“Yes.” John rubs at his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “I have to go. Sherlock and I have to go. This time you’re not coming with.”

Martin gulps and nods. He extends a hand slightly towards John, but John doesn’t notice. John stands up, and he leaves the room without looking back.

That night, Jim Moriarty is in jail, but John’s mind isn’t any easier. The whole thing worries at him, and what makes it worse is Sherlock’s complete disengagement from any attempt to discuss the matter and Martin’s cheerful, naïve assumption that Everything Will Be All Right Now Because The Bad Guy Is In Jail.

He and Martin had gone out to Angelo’s for dinner since Martin would be returning to Fitton the next day. Their conversation had been stilted, with Martin trying, over and over, to turn it to lighter topics and John repeatedly lapsing into anxious silences. John typically insists on dessert, but this time he hadn’t, and they’d walked home in silence after John left a hefty tip for Billy.

When they return to 221B, Sherlock is nowhere to be found.

“Where do you think he went?” Martin asks.

John shrugs and goes automatically to the kettle, but then he stops himself and turns back to Martin. “Perhaps we should take advantage of his absence?”

Martin laughs, but he follows John up the stairs readily.

It’s not that they haven’t had sex with Sherlock in the flat, but it is a bit odd, especially if they can hear what Sherlock is doing. John had nearly lost his erection, once, when Martin had been sucking him off and Sherlock suddenly stopped in the middle of the last movement of Shostakovich’s Concerto No. 1—the Burlesque, perhaps appropriately. Martin doesn’t seem to mind Sherlock’s presence in the flat as much; all in all, he seems to feel shockingly at ease around Sherlock, after Norway. Sherlock had actually thanked him for his help, and that had been enough to wear away the bulk of Martin’s feelings of intimidation around him. Martin doesn’t try to engage with Sherlock unless Sherlock addresses him specifically, but John thinks that’s not an unhealthy attitude. In fact, it’s an attitude more people around Sherlock (Anderson, Sally) should probably try.

John wants to take advantage of Sherlock’s absence in this particular instance because he’s already feeling self-conscious about what he wants to do, and he doesn’t want anything to add to it. When they’re shut in John’s bedroom, Martin strips down to his pants quickly and seats himself at the edge of the bed, waiting for and watching John. He’s learned that John doesn’t really like to be stripped, and that’s because some days John still doesn’t want to expose his mangled shoulder. Some days—days like today—he keeps his vest on and tenses if Martin even accidentally brushes the scar through the thin cloth.

Later, in the still too-quiet flat, John pushes into Martin for the first time, and it’s not what he expects. The sensations aren’t far off: hot and tight and smooth, but the experience overall is different. John doesn’t feel powerful or dominant or even very much in control. One of Martin’s legs is draped over his good shoulder, and the other is wrapped around his waist, and, after a brief moment when he’d thrown his head back and shut his eyes and groaned when John had just barely seated the head of his prick inside, Martin is looking up at him through half-lidded eyes still (too) piercing in their gaze. John has to muster all of his concentration not to look away, and the shift in focus results in his failing to restrain his hips from snapping forward until he’s buried to the hilt. Martin grunts and slides his leg down off John’s shoulder to his waist. He pulls John down into a kiss, pulsing his hips to encourage John into a rhythm.

John finds himself concentrating on kissing Martin and letting his lower half do what it wants. He can’t think about a piece of himself inside Martin and Martin’s trusting gaze and the single layer of cloth separating the skin of their chests because it’s too much. There’s a thought he’s been trying not to allow entrance into his mind all day, ever since “Come and play,” and that’s the thought that his time with Martin might be limited, one way or another.

When Martin pulls his mouth away to verbally urge John faster and deeper, John hides his face in Martin’s shoulder and follows instruction. He pumps his hips, still focusing on the flex and pull of muscle, on the tight smooth clench, and on Martin’s heels pressing into his back—in short, on each little piece instead of the picture they form as a whole. And he almost loses himself in it, except that Martin shifts the angle of his hips, and then he’s whimpering and scrabbling at John’s back. Martin’s fingers don’t find good purchase with John’s vest in the way; he only succeeds in rucking it up to clutch in two wrinkled handfuls. When he’s truly desperate, he lets go, throwing one arm around John’s neck to keep him in position and wedging his other hand between them to bring himself off in three sharp jerks. The sensation of his arching and shuddering and clenching beneath and around John is a shock, and then Martin relaxes everywhere except for his arms, which he sweeps down John’s back to press on his arse, pulling him in.

“Come on,” he urges, voice low. “You now.”

John bites into Martin’s shoulder and pushes as deep as he can, and Martin continues to encourage his grinding thrusts with hands squeezing his arse until John comes, shaking and accidentally pushing Martin up the bed until the top of his head bumps into the headboard. When he pulls his mouth away from Martin’s shoulder—and his jaw, it _aches_ —there’s the tang of copper in his mouth and deep, slightly bloody indentations in Martin’s skin. Martin catches him looking and preempts John’s apology, “Don’t worry about it.” He strains up to kiss John as John withdraws and helps him rearrange his legs. “You worry too much.”

John lays his head on Martin’s chest so that Martin can’t see his frown, but Martin’s hands stroking over his shoulders can surely perceive the tension rooted there, unabated.

### London, 31st May, 11:20 a.m.

John is surprised to see that it’s Martin come to bail him out, but it’s an idle kind of surprise, and he doesn’t say anything.

Martin dry washes his hands and shifts on his feet. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for your loss, for our loss, not that I knew him like you did, but–” Martin turns away for a moment, tugging at his own hair and blinking rapidly. When he turns back, he says again, “I’m sorry.”

John feels tears welling up in his eyes, and he nods. He can’t speak, but Martin saves him from having to make the effort.

“Douglas called me when he saw it on the news, and then I tried to call you, and I talked to Mrs. Hudson, and she told me about you getting arrested, and when I was done talking with her, _Mycroft_ called me.”

John straightens up at this, pulling up from how he’d been hunched over, elbows on his knees.

“He gave me the bond money.”

“I don’t–” John begins to protest, but Martin cuts him off.

“You’d be an idiot not to accept it. He must have been tapping the phones at 221B, and that must have been because he was worried, or because he knew he’d done something wrong and knew that you wouldn’t accept his help directly. He owes you, or Sh–” Martin pauses, and John glares, daring. “Or he owes Sherlock, or he owes the both of you, I don’t know. But he can help, and you’re an idiot if you refuse.”

“An idiot,” John repeats flatly.

“An idiot.”

And John’s looking at Martin now with such _hatred_ —there’s no sense in sugar-coating it—that Martin is left visibly steeling himself against the impulse to physically recoil. John half expects him to cup his hands over his groin and back into the corner.

The taxi ride to 221B is conducted in complete silence except for Martin’s giving of the address to the cabbie when they got in. John leads the way up the seventeen steps, but he doesn’t get more than a few steps over the threshold when he stops and his shoulders fall. With his back still to Martin, he somehow manages to sense Martin’s hand approaching and shrugs it away from his shoulder before it even lands.

“You should go now,” John says quietly.

Martin freezes. “I don’t think you should be alone right now,” he says, finally.

“Me, the idiot?” John whips around, hissing. “You’re right, you know. I am an _idiot_. And it kills people. _I_ kill people. Or at least I get people killed, but what’s the difference?”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“You don’t _know_ that!” John shouts, and then, incongruously, he’s ripping his shirt open and peeling off his vest. “Sherlock jumping off that fucking roof is as much my fault as this is, and for the same goddamned reason. Do you know what that is?”

Martin shakes his head, backing up until his shoulder blades hit the door.

“I was duped. This isn’t even the worst of it, by the way. I don’t care that I got shot. I got Newton killed, and that’s what matters. I got her killed, and I got shot, by being an _idiot_. Every choice along the way was my choice. I _volunteered_ to go on an operational tour. It’s not that typical, for an Army doctor. But I thought I could be useful out on patrols and training soldier-medics. It’s not just about fighting, even on the forward operating bases. It’s as much about boots-on-the-ground diplomacy, winning over the locals. And a doctor is useful for that. It’s something to trade, a peace offering, a show of good faith. _Faith._ ” John stops, thinking of Sherlock’s face, ghostly pale, and his accusation ‘You’re worried they’re right about me’, accusing John of losing faith. The memory doesn’t sting so much as it cuts his feet out from underneath him. He stumbles backwards to his chair and sinks into it; Martin stays with his back pressed to the door.

“Where was I?” John mutters, mostly to himself. “Oh, right. Me getting _duped_. Me being an _idiot_. I was a prize idiot, just _classic_. We’d been making inroads with a family that had ties to one of the local leaders; we had hopes they might join in some of our counter-insurgency efforts and pass on some of our ideas to the leadership. And what they wanted in return, well, they kept hedging or denying that they needed anything, and that’s not really the way of these things, so it was suspicious from the start, not that we really thought too hard about it, or at least I didn’t. And we thought we had it all figured out when one of the younger men in the family approached me and Private Newton and said he needed help with his daughter. He never came right out and said what she needed, but you know, Afghanistan, women and women’s health are not exactly top priorities there—oh, he was _good_ —and we happily filled in the blanks and assumed the worst, and we agreed to meet them outside of the village later.”

John trails off, lost and sunken into an abyss of guilt and shame and regret.

“It was a trap?” Martin asks softly.

“Yes. And _Jesus_ , Sherlock must have _known_ , must have fucking _deduced_ it, because I never told him but he knew _exactly_ how to get me to leave him alone at Bart’s so that he could throw himself off the bloody roof for Moriarty. A woman in danger, and off I run. Bloody imbecile.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“Yes I could have!” John heaves back to his feet. “I even bloody said so! He said he was _busy_ , that he needed to _think_ , and I _knew_ that wasn’t the truth because he’d half killed a man the last time Mrs. Hudson was threatened, and it didn’t make any sense, but like a perfect idiot I went along with it and–” John takes in a shaking, choking breath. “I _left_.”

John scrubs at his eyes in disgust and then catches Martin’s eye. “Aren’t you going to tell me it wasn’t my fault again?”

“No.”

“No?!”

Martin shrugs. “I don’t think it’s what you want me to say,” he explains in a small voice.

“And that’s all you’re concerned with, what I _want_ you to say?” John steps closer, hands on his hips.

Martin lifts his chin, gathering himself. “I don’t think there’s anything right to say in this situation. It’s not dishonesty, it’s just– I’m just trying to _help_.”

“Help,” John echoes hollowly. “I don’t want _help_.”

“What do you want then?”

“I want you to _leave_. I didn’t ask for you to come _rescue_ me. I don’t–”

“I–”

But John cuts Martin off, folding his arms over his still bare chest. “Just _go_.”

Martin leaves.


	5. parachute over me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Martin find a road back to each other.

### London, 31st May, 3:05 p.m.

Martin doesn’t leave John alone for long; he knows it’s not a good idea, and besides, if he returned to Fitton and went back to work the look Douglas would give him, well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Martin knows that this is a situation where his own hurt is secondary to what John’s going through, and that makes it shockingly easy to tuck his wounded feelings away and focus on doing what’s best for John.

After walking out of 221B, he’d been wandering aimlessly under the too cheerful bright afternoon sun with the balmy late spring air caressing his skin too pleasantly. His mind is full of half-formed speeches, all of them a terrible mix of (unnecessary) apology and didactic sermon. But when he spies a Tesco, he decides it’s better to start with the practical. Perhaps— _perhaps_ —Mrs. Hudson has done the shopping, but it’s equally likely she hasn’t, or that John will refuse her help in days to come. So Martin buys packet rice and pasta and potatoes and tinned beans and the Tesco pre-sliced white bread that doesn’t get mouldy for weeks, if ever: in short, all the kinds of things he’s accustomed to living on himself. They’re things that keep and that are easy to prepare, even for the barely motivated.

When the door to 221B is in sight once again, it occurs to Martin to worry about how he’s going to get in; he doesn’t particularly want to knock. His steps slow as he thinks over the possibilities, and then the door swings in as he’s approaching, and it’s Mrs. Hudson, popping her head out and beckoning him inside. Her face is puffy, but she smiles at him.

“I’m glad you’ve come back. Come on, come on.” Her hand at his back is a comfort, even if it shouldn’t be (because surely she’s lost more than he has). She herds him into the hall and then into her kitchen. “Cuppa before you go up?”

It’s not a question, not really. She’s already pouring from a becosied teapot before he answers, and she nudges him into a chair and puts the tea and a tray of biscuits before him.

“He’s angry at himself, you know, thinks he could have done something to save–” Mrs. Hudson stops and covers her mouth with a trembling hand.

“I know,” Martin assures her. “Don’t worry. I know. It’ll be all right.” Mrs. Hudson gets up and starts unnecessarily tidying her counter spaces to cover her upset. She tucks a pair of used napkins back into a drawer with clean ones and moves a chef’s knife from the cutting board to the sink, where she might cut herself on it later if she dips her hands into soapy water without looking first at what’s underneath.

“His sister’s an alcoholic. You know that, right?” Mrs. Hudson can’t see Martin’s nod with her back turned. “Just– You might want to watch for that. It can run in the family, you know.”

“I know.”

“Mycroft’s arranged the lease with me.” A beat. “Do you think he’ll want to stay here?”

“I don’t know.”

“All right, well.” Mrs. Hudson places a warm hand on Martin’s shoulder and squeezes. He wraps his own fingers around hers and squeezes back. The ticking of the clock on the wall vibrates in the air, and Martin is conscious of the sound of his own swallowing as he sips his tea.

When he gets up to leave, Mrs. Hudson draws him into a hug before he’s out of her reach, and then she cradles his face in her hands and pulls him down so that she can kiss his forehead. “Take care of him,” she whispers. “And take care of yourself too.”

When Martin slowly eases open the door to the flat, he finds John not much moved: he’s sat in his chair, now with a shirt on but his shoes and socks for some reason removed. He’s resting his head on the furled fingers of his left hand and staring blankly at Sherlock’s chair opposite to him. He doesn’t move at all when Martin steps into the room.

Martin puts the shopping on the table in the kitchen, shifting the single perishable (milk) to the refrigerator. He fills the kettle from the sink and switches it on, pulling mugs and teabags from the cupboard. As he waits for the kettle to boil, he palms the edge of the table and hangs his head, taking in one steadying breath after another. And then the tea is ready and his excuses are done: it’s time to go see to John.

John isn’t completely catatonic; he accepts the tea automatically, perhaps even with the tiniest nod of acknowledgment, although it’s difficult to tell. Martin can’t sit in Sherlock’s chair, obviously, so he sits on the floor with his legs extended in front of him, leaning back on the arm of John’s chair. The silence in the room migrates slowly from uncomfortable to not-uncomfortable as they both sip tea and breathe in the new shapes of things: the empty chair, the neglected chemistry equipment, the now decorative music stand and violin case with violin and bow cradled inside.

Martin sets his mug aside on the floor and tentatively trails a hand up from John’s ankle to cup his calf. John turns his head and looks down, and it’s one of those oddly spooky things, how Martin can _feel_ the shift in his gaze and turns his own face up to meet John’s eyes. John moves the hand in his lap to Martin’s wrist and then pulls Martin’s hand onto his knee, interlocking their fingers. They sit in silence until the sun sets, leaving 221B in the not-quite-dark of illumination from the street lamps outside.

### Fitton, June and July

Martin’s feet know the path along the train tracks, the very ones he lives on the wrong side of, cliché that that is, the path that then turns away from the tracks and traces through Maidenhead Park: the path that his feet know so well that he never even trips on the roots that twist up from the ground in gnarled knuckles. Those knuckles are bigger than they were the last time he walked this path so often, but his feet still remember to lift over them.

The last time this was a habit was between tries (failures) at his CPL. But then his steps were mostly taken in twilight when he’d been done with van jobs and (reluctantly) tired of his books. He’d walked under the intermittent glow of street lamps and with the shouts and skirmishes of Fitton’s disgruntled and unemployed youth as background noise that sometimes sparked at the back of his neck as a danger signal—he’d looked an easy target, surely—but he’d never been mugged or even harassed. Perhaps they’d seen a bit of their own despair and upset and anger at the world reflected in him and left him alone for that reason.

Now it’s different. He walks at anytime, unpredictably, because the inducement to his walking now is not something within himself. It’s John. And John in grief is unpredictable in the extreme. The five stages are there, but there’s not a sequence to them so much as John seems to travel through them all _every single day_ , although one is typically dominant.

It was anger first. Anger at himself, mostly. And when Martin’d tried to sympathise, he’d received only heightened anger in return. So then Martin had tried brutal honesty: sure, perhaps John _could_ have prevented Sherlock’s suicide if he’d acted differently. The outcome might have been even worse—two or three bodies on top of or below that dreaded silhouette of St. Bart’s—but it might have been better. Perhaps. Martin had made an analogy to his own repeated failures and urged John to focus on the future, to persist, and that had been precisely the wrong thing to say, and Martin had left for the second time and come back to this path for the first time in several years.

And then it was a pattern: John yelling and going red in the face, Martin escaping out the door, as much to give John a break from him as to protect himself from John’s wrath. It occurs to Martin, when he has the energy to spare for such thoughts, that this might not be the healthiest strategy, but at the same time it doesn’t seem so terribly unreasonable. Two people can’t live in each other’s pockets even when there isn’t a terrible mauling grief rending at the fabric of their relationship; they need time apart.

John had come to Fitton almost right away, staying with Harry at first because she had a spare room and despite the seriousness of the situation, Martin had been embarrassed to offer the sharing of his attic. For John, 221B had been too full of things that weren’t even ghosts yet, things that were distressingly too solid and real and abiding: the skull on the mantle, the Persian slipper, the Cluedo board. But Harry had kicked John out only a day and a half after he’d arrived, when she’d come home early from work to find him drunk on nearly a pint of cheap whiskey, and they’d screamed at each other until Harry was hoarse, the remainder of the whiskey had been poured down the sink, and John had slammed the door on his way out, duffel bag thrown over his shoulder. It had been the day Mrs. Hudson had taken John to the cemetery.

Harry had called Martin to warn him about John’s mood and likely impending appearance at Martin’s, but by the time John had arrived, he’d turned disturbingly quiet and pliant, allowing Martin to serve him cup after cup of heavily sweetened black coffee and then strip him and plant him in the shower. Martin had wrapped himself around John that night, both of them completely naked, with John’s face tucked under Martin’s chin and their legs intertwined. The quiet had been so still that Martin had drifted off to the ticking of the clock in the second-floor hallway, a whole storey below his attic (their attic). He’d woken, however, to an empty bed and the irregular sounds of button pushes at a keyboard. (Later that day while in line at the Tesco, he’d opened Google Reader on his phone and seen the update—one devastatingly simple sentence—to John’s blog.)

John is increasingly difficult. He gets stuck in denial and bargaining, and they both take the form of “if only John could apply his mind, be clever, _notice_ instead of know, then…”. Then John would find out that Sherlock isn’t dead. Then John would figure out how he faked his suicide. Then John wouldn’t be alone. And that’s the worst part. Looking at John, Martin sees a lonely man and a man alone. But _he’s_ here. He’s here, but obviously it’s not enough, even if some days he suspects that it’s—he’s—all that keeps John going.

It’s usually when John snaps and starts shouting at him. If Martin doesn’t leave right away, then it’s only minutes before John’s shouting becomes John looming in his space and then John kissing him roughly, possessively, his hands clutching to Martin’s hips as if Martin might fall (away) too. Martin _enjoys_ this, folding his arms around John in return, but there’s a deep twisting somewhere below his ribs as a result because surely he shouldn’t be taking pleasure in this, surely he shouldn’t get so hard and wanting so very, very quickly.

John usually fucks Martin, when he’s in this kind of mood, and it’s not– There’s a certain violence to it, but it’s nothing permanently harmful, and it’s nothing Martin objects to, even in the privacy of his own mind. In fact, he finds himself rather overwhelmingly getting off on it. (To admit that he’s _enjoying_ it seems vulgar.) It’s hurried and abrupt and stretching and _stretching_ (and often almost fully clothed and against the attic door), but it’s also real, and it’s not arguing or stony silence or, worst of all, sullen, apathetic blankness. It’s painful, perhaps, in the same way that giving birth is: in the service of something greater. Martin hopes it _is_ in the service of something greater, hopes that John is healing. ‘Moving on’ is a repugnant phrase, Martin has decided, but healing doesn’t so much imply leaving behind or even movement. Healing allows for not moving at all, for staying the same person, just filling in the chinks, knitting back together the rent apart seams, darning the holes, and even though Martin finds himself the one getting filled, in the literal sense, on the metaphorical level he’s the one trying to repair the void.

The three days of the ball obsession coincide with a dry spell until John’s searching and obsessing lead him to a _Mentalist_ episode and he realises (or, to him, at least, it’s a realisation; to Martin, it’s delusion) that Sherlock’s “ball trick” is so well known a fact that it’s figured in a television series. John: medical doctor, constant companion of Sherlock’s, and still fooled so easily. It stirs John to anger, and anger moves him to Martin, but it’s different this time, and Martin finds it still incredibly arousing but far, far more disturbing to have John on his knees sucking down his leaking prick, eyes pinched closed and hands pulling at his buttocks, pulling him in deeper and deeper. It’s incredible to be the object of such a display of (startlingly aggressive) vulnerability, and Martin can’t restrain the movement of his hips, at least not with John urging him on. There’s a paradox to the whole thing, then, because Martin doesn’t want to take advantage and tries and tries to hold back, but that only makes it last longer, until saliva is dripping down John’s chin and his whole face is beet red. When he comes, Martin clutches at John’s temples, and John’s chokes a little, and none of it—even the relief of orgasm—makes Martin feel better at all.

Things— _John_ —get better so slowly that the change it almost undetectable until Martin takes a moment to himself to really think about it. John found a bit of locum work at Fitton’s NHS clinic, and now he tends to get called in there a few days a week. They need the money, and John mostly does better if he’s occupied when Martin’s away flying around the world.

As for Martin, he hasn’t started sharing more about his personal life at MJN, although he’ll answer when Douglas presses for an update on John’s condition, so all in all work is normal and a bit of a relief since he can almost, _almost_ forget about John while he’s concentrating on the walk-around or drawing up a flight plan and definitely when he’s actually flying. Carolyn starts paying him a small salary, and Martin knows it’s pity and concern for his situation with John and him sharing his tiny attic and living on the money from Martin’s van jobs (because Carolyn doesn’t know about John’s locum work but does know that John’s living with him because John drives him to and picks him up from the airfield more often than not). Martin knows this, but he doesn’t really care. He knows he’s becoming a better pilot and deserves to be paid, and he’s happy to consider the money as his due in that light even if that’s not really the truth. There are many ways in which reality doesn’t reflect truth: this is what people mean, Martin thinks, when they complain that life isn’t _fair_ , but Martin’s learned to adapt, preferring even self-deception over ever increasing bitterness.

There are hurdles, backward steps. There is the time when Martin has just returned from a two-day trip to San Francisco and John hasn’t yet returned from the clinic. Martin has unpacked and stepped into the shower, and then John is home and within minutes Martin is on his knees on the loo floor, trying to find a remotely comfortable way of bracing himself against the edge of the tub while John pumps into him, fast and rough. John is getting close, forcing Martin’s knees wider apart with his own and grabbing a handful of Martin’s hair and _pulling_. And that’s the breaking point: Martin seizes John’s wrist and throws his arm away from his head and bucks John off even though it’s not pleasant, the head of John’s cock tugging painfully at his rim before it comes free.

“Don’t,” Martin says, standing up and fumbling for a hold on the sink because his legs prove to be a bit shaky underneath him.

John is mostly shocked, knocked back on his arse and elbows and staring up at Martin with wide eyes. John’s cock is still hard, jutting out from his body and an angry shade of red. When he recovers from the shock of Martin’s escape and everything clicks, he stumbles to his feet and tries to hide his erection behind his hands in a bizarrely _ex post facto_ attempt at modesty.

Martin’s making it up as he goes along. He turns the shower on and tests the spray with his fingers; it’s nearly scalding hot, and he doesn’t adjust it. “Get in,” he directs to John.

John obeys, stepping into the tub with the spray at his back. Martin steps in behind him and wraps one arm around John’s waist while he takes John’s cock in his other hand. One of John’s hands joins Martin’s on his cock, directing Martin’s grip much tighter than he ever would have dared. In tandem they squeeze and pull until John comes with a grunt, but John doesn’t let up his grip on Martin’s hand around his cock until long after the aftershocks have passed. Eventually he goes limp and slumps against the tile. Martin washes both John and himself and then settles John—John, who still won’t look him in the eye—into bed, but Martin doesn’t join him. Martin returns to the loo to take care of his own frustrated arousal, spilling his release into the sink, and then he goes down to the kitchen and makes himself a tea that burns his oesophagus when he takes too large of a drink before it’s cooled sufficiently.

There’s also the time that Martin returns from four days away (Tokyo, then Honolulu, back to Tokyo, Seattle, Ottawa, and finally back to England) to find that John hasn’t been called in at all during that time and hasn’t eaten anything or even got out of bed. He’s dropped half a stone, and he smells disgusting—the whole attic, in fact, will need airing out—but Martin isn’t really put off at all, only terrified. And then he finds himself relieved that cleaning John up, coaxing him to ingest some soup and crackers, and sleeping for twelve straight hours curled up together doesn’t make things instantly better because if it did he might start to feel guilty about the times when he’s away flying, and he doesn’t want to feel guilty about the only thing he’s ever wanted to do.

But things do get better again, incrementally, and when Martin stops to think about it now he realises that things are quite nearly almost _good_. It makes him smile to himself in the hotel shuttle taking them to the Barcelona airport, where they’ve a departure scheduled in three hours time. Then there will be the two hours of flight time, and then he’ll be with John again.

### BCN to FMF, Gertie, 1st August, 1:13 p.m.

“Hold course, Golf Tango India.”

“Hold course?!? We’ve been holding course for two and half hours!” Martin explodes. “We’re running out of fuel! You can’t just– What the hell is going on? I can’t think of any reason for us to be just, _circling_ like this.”

The voice of the ATC on the other end of the line drops to a whisper. “We’re hostages.”

“What?!”

Arthur chooses this moment to burst through the flight deck door, but his “Ch–” is cut off by Douglas’ finger over his lips and a stern glare.

“He’s got a gun. We have to do as he says.”

“Oh God.” Martin clears his throat. “The police?”

“I’ve got to go. He’s coming over–. I’ve got to go.”

The connection with ATC cuts off, and their situation is suddenly, terribly clear. Martin’s first thought is for John, and what it will do to John if Martin doesn’t come back from this (if none of them—him and Douglas and Arthur and Carolyn and their two upper crust passengers, husband and wife—come back). He should perhaps be worried that thinking first what it will do to John is an indicator of some sort of alarming co-dependency, but Martin’s next thought, accompanied by a dizzying and distressingly _warm_ flood of adrenaline, is most definitely for himself. It’s a neatly packaged collection of the thoughts he _should_ be having: I’m too young to die; this isn’t fair; why me; dear God, I love aeroplanes, but I didn’t want to _die_ in one.

Next Martin takes this collection of thoughts, and he sets it aside. He’s still the Captain, and he’s still the one flying, and there’s no room for self-pity or fear or anything but professionalism and _protocol_. He glances over to Douglas, who seems to be recovering from the same sort of bundling up and setting aside activity.

“Keep on auto-pilot?” He regrets the question mark as soon as it’s left his mouth.

“I should think so, yes,” Douglas responds.

“For maximum fuel efficiency.”

“Indeed.”

“Douglas–”

“ _Don’t_ , Martin.”

“Don’t _what_? I was going to suggest we ask Arthur to fetch us some drinks, and I didn’t know if you wanted tea or coffee.”

Douglas is looking at him with surprise and more than a little confusion. Martin continues, more quietly, “I think it would be best if we all tried to keep…busy, while we wait.”

Douglas shakes himself. “Yes, yes of course. My usual, tea with everything in it.”

“Arthur?” Martin begins, and he reaches out to touch Arthur’s arm.

Arthur startles out of his gaping fish impression, the result of his overhearing the conversation with ATC. He looks between Martin and Douglas and back again.

“Skip? Are–”

Martin just _knows_ that he’s not going to like the continuation of that question, so he interrupts. “Our usuals, Arthur, please, if you would.” And silently, with his eyes: please don’t ask me if we’re going to die because I don’t have an answer, and I don’t want to lie to you.

“Sure thing, Skip. Coming right up.” As he’s about to step out, he turns back and asks, shakily. “Shall I send mum in?”

“Yes, please do.”

It’s a good thing that auto-pilot is the best way of achieving maximum fuel efficiency while they circle (and circle and circle) because Martin would not have been able to fly Gertie and hold his own in a shouting match against Carolyn at the same time.

“We can’t just land _anywhere_!”

“It’s not a matter of _can_ , Martin, it’s a _must_!”

“People could die! There are other planes in the air. ATC exists _for a reason_. Not to mention where exactly do you expect us to put down? The M bloody 25?”

Carolyn’s tone shifts. “I’m just asking you, Martin, to consider a Plan B. It’s only a last resort.”

“I won’t endanger the lives of others in order to save our skins, last resort or no. That’s– I _won’t_.”

Carolyn turns towards Douglas, crossing her arms over her chest, but even as she opens her mouth–

“I’m with our beloved Captain on this one. For once I can say without reservations that he is absolutely, completely correct.”

Martin feels himself flush slightly at the praise, and then he hates himself for the pettiness of deriving satisfaction from Douglas’ approval in this kind of situation, and the shame makes him flush deeper.

“I own this company. I–” Carolyn falters.

“ _Carolyn_.” Douglas’ tone is half-scolding, half-pleading.

“Oh, you’re right. I know you’re right. I just can’t– I don’t want– Arthur.”

“We know,” Douglas offers.

“And he knows?”

Martin nods. “Yes, he heard.”

“Oh, all right. I’ll go fetch my son–,” her voice breaks, but she recovers with a setting of her shoulders, “–from whatever mess he’s got himself into, and I’ll fetch us my secret stash of Camembert.”

“Please do.” Douglas sounds, once again, himself.

When they’ve finished the Camembert and Carolyn and Arthur have returned to the cabin to attend to their passengers, Douglas and Martin let several tense minutes pass, both gazing out at the sky and the clouds under the bright sun, thinking dark thoughts.

“Perhaps a game?” Douglas suggests, finally.

“Yes. Definitely.”

“Books and films with ‘death’ in the title?”

Martin’s head whips around sharply. Douglas only shrugs in response, and he’s right: there’s no use beating about the bush.

“Death in Venice,” Martin starts.

“Death at a Funeral.”

“Death Proof.”

“Death in the Afternoon.”

“Death Becomes Her.”

“Death of a Salesman.”

“Doesn’t count! That’s a play,” Martin protests.

“It was made into a TV movie in the eighties.”

“TV movies don’t–”

“With _Dustin Hoffman_ and John Malkovich.”

“ _Fine._ Um–” After having been successfully caught up in the game, reality comes rushing back into Martin’s mind in a tsunami of white, blinding fear. “On Death and Dying.”

“Low-hanging fruit.” Douglas pretends not to notice the shaking in Martin’s voice. “Death with Interruptions.”

And, fittingly, just then they’re interrupted by ATC with instructions to adjust their altitude. The controller’s voice is hoarse and clipped, each consonant bitten off precisely and deliberately. The game is forgotten once Martin’s carried out ATC’s orders; silence and stolen, sidelong glances reign instead.

The instruction to follow a new heading coming from a fresh, different controller comes as if in a dream. Martin responds automatically, both in word and deed. It’s the best landing he’s ever made, and the ground under his feet is solid in a way nothing has been before. Carolyn hugs him and smells of lavender and sweat. Arthur hugs him too, tightly, too tightly until he’s gasping and laughing and there’s heat in his face from the blood that seems to have been trapped there, all of his blood forced up or down away from the vice of Arthur’s grip around his middle. And Douglas, alarmingly– Douglas _ruffles_ his hair and claps him on the back with a heavy palm and then gives up and pulls him in with an arm around his shoulders, whispering “Well done, Captain” so close that his lips brush the cartilage at the top of Martin’s ear.

There’s a town car that crunches over the gravel laid down next to Fitton airfield’s singular runway and causes them all to stop their progress towards the portacabin and turn. Only Martin recognises the man who climbs out of the back of the car, the man with the oily smile and an umbrella.

“Mycroft.”

“ _Captain_ Crieff. Dr. Watson has asked me to _retrieve_ you, if you’d be so kind.” Mycroft indicates the car with his umbrella.

“John?”

“Is still at the control centre in Swanwick. He—you’ll realise I don’t say this often—rather _cleverly_ orchestrated your safe landing. And that of the other flights, of course.”

“How?” It’s Douglas who cuts in. “And who?”

Mycroft answers the second question first. “I’m no one of concern. Just a minor government official. The _how_ was a rather well-choreographed passing off of each radar terminal to the old LTCC without the hostage taker’s noticing by way of swapping in an ATC simulator at the same time.”

There’s something odd about this, and finally Martin gets his finger on it. “John? What–? How did John get involved?”

Mycroft ignores the question.

Swanwick isn’t far from Fitton, and that’s a blessing because the drive is awkward enough as it is. After another embarrassing round of hugs—all the more embarrassing with Mycroft standing off to the side, leaning on his umbrella and pretending not to watch—Mycroft had ushered Martin into the car, pressed a tumbler of Scotch into his hand, and waved at the driver to go. Martin gulps back the Scotch, tries and fails to stifle a cough, and finally decides to follow Mycroft’s example and watch the scenery pass out the window. It’s boring, even though it’s miles and miles of comfortingly bright and _living_ green. Well, greenery and low-slung warehouses and power lines and ditches scattered with litter and lorries passing them with a rumble.

### London Area Control Centre, Swanwick, Hampshire, 4:31 p.m.

When Martin catches sight of John, John’s leaning on one of the tables, hands gripping the edge and head bowed, looking down. It’s ambiguous body language—disappointment, frustration, fatigue—except that Martin can see, somehow, that it’s relief. Overwhelming relief. And not just relief that Martin and the rest of the MJN crew are back on the ground, safe. It’s relief for everyone who’s safe on the ground now, relief for the police who didn’t have to fire their weapons today, relief even for the hostage taker who’s under arrest but unharmed and responsible, apparently, only for a minor gunshot wound from when he’d wrestled a gun away from the control centre security guard and it had misfired and for providing everyone involved with a harrowing experience and an exciting story to tell. No lives lost, not today.

So Martin doesn’t hesitate in approaching John and laying a hand on his bowed back.

“Thank you. That was clever thinking, using the simulators to disguise the hand-off.”

John straightens up in surprise and winces, reaching to rub at his back. “Martin! How did you know–?”

“Mycroft picked me up at the airfield, told me about it.”

“Oh. Good.”

John seems to be faltering in the trough left by the passing of his adrenaline high, struck slightly dumb and slow.

“Are you ready to go?”

John shakes himself and sweeps his gaze around, nodding to someone who looks to be police. He picks up his jacket off a chair nearby and shrugs into it, doing up the buttons slowly, too slowly for it to be shock and preoccupation alone. Martin’s about to say something, when: “Baker Street?” John asks.

“Oh! Um, sure.”

It’s an illogical suggestion; Fitton is much closer, but Martin doesn’t want to discourage what could be progress, so they climb into a car (provided by Mycroft, of course) for the two-hour journey. John continues to carry the keys to 221B on him, apparently, but he calls Mrs. Hudson so that she’s not alarmed when they arrive. Martin feels a twist under his ribs when John pushes open the door, remembering that day not so long ago when they’d sat in the not-quite-dark with Martin on the floor and John in his chair and Sherlock’s chair devastatingly empty. Both of the chairs are empty now as they enter, of course, but it’s also late summer, so even though the evening is drawing on, the flat is bathed in a warm light that helps to make the emptiness look not tragic or neglected or lonely but just still and placid.

John himself doesn’t seem to be contemplating the empty chairs as they enter, or if he does, it’s only for a moment. He heads for the kitchen, flicking the light on and going straight for the kettle and the tea in the cupboard.

Mrs. Hudson comes up to say her hellos during their tea, and Martin struggles to deflect her concerns over his frightful experience and keep an eye on John at the same time, but John seems fine and happy to chat with her, even. It doesn’t seem forced or faked; John’s posture is relaxed, and his shoulders are loose. At uneven intervals he snakes his foot under the table to brush his toes against Martin’s ankle or trace up his calf. Finally, when Mrs. Hudson calls Martin out on his frowning contemplations (“Are you sure you’re all right, dear?”), Martin resolves to drop his speculations, take John at face value, and stop worrying.

When Mrs. Hudson closes the door behind her as she exits, John turns to Martin. “ _Finally._ I thought she’d never bugger off.”

Martin feels his eyebrows climbing up his forehead, and John laughs.

“Oh, don’t look like that. It was nice enough for her to visit, but I’ve wanted you alone for some time now.” As he speaks, John’s foot is back, wandering up farther, to his knee and then, ticklishly, worming between his thighs. John even explores Martin’s crotch with his toes, poking and prodding clumsily and somewhat uncomfortably. Martin’s cock twitches, but he grimaces at the same time.

“Do you think I could get you hard like this?” John asks, cocking his head to the side and grinning.

Martin groans and shifts in his chair, gripping the edge of the table with both hands to brace himself. “I don’t kn–” He trails off in favor of a sharp intake of breath as John succeeds in almost _gripping_ his cock with his toes and sliding them up and down the entire length through his uniform trousers. “Jesus, that’s–”

“Good?”

“ _Odd_ ,” Martin corrects. “Just–” John clenches his toes over the head. “ _Fuck._ Just– _Oh._ Just take me to bed already!”

John laughs again, and that’s got to be more laughter in the last five minutes than Martin has heard from him in the past two months altogether.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

John leads Martin up to his bedroom by the hand, like they’re teenagers. Inside, John strips his own shirt and vest off and then nearly tears Martin out of his shirt when Martin’s attempts at undoing his own buttons fail John’s patience. John peels off Martin’s trousers next and pushes Martin onto the bed while he struggles with his own jeans. Then he joins Martin on the bed, straddling Martin’s splayed legs and pressing his groin tightly against Martin’s. He braces himself with his arms to either side of Martin’s head, and Martin automatically reaches up to curl his hands around John’s forearms and hold him in place.

They are both still as John locks his eyes onto Martin’s. There’s a change in John, somewhere, but Martin can’t pin it down. He’s not radiant, and he doesn’t look any younger—it was a long day for them both, and the age lines in John’s face are if anything etched deeper than usual—but there is _something_ different, something more relaxed, more at peace.

John starts to roll his hips, just dragging their cocks against each other through their pants. The pulling friction is delicious, and Martin presses up into it when he catches onto John’s rhythm. He breaks eye contact first when John grinds down against him with a particular hard _precision_ that sparks a shooting spike of arousal through his balls. He throws his head back and moans, clutching tighter at John’s forearms and clenching his toes. Before he’s recovered, John’s lips are on his, and John’s tongue is stroking inside his mouth to the same rhythm as his hips, and Martin shifts his arms to loop around John’s shoulders, holding on and keeping close.

Despite the dual barrier of their pants, Martin is almost overwhelmed by the closeness and intensity of John, frotting against him and kissing him and braced over and all around him. There’s hardly any of their skin touching, but somehow it feels like they’re connected everywhere, as if their skins are melding together, an envelope of intimacy surrounding them both.

John’s mouth breaks away from Martin’s when his lungs force him to pause and gasp for breath, and Martin feels the loss acutely, pulling John’s head down into the join of his neck and shoulder rather than letting him draw back any further. John’s breath on his skin raises gooseflesh, and Martin shivers and stretches, grinding up hard against John’s hips. John bucks in response and what was an unhurried pace becomes something frenzied and tense, John pushing his chin into Martin’s shoulder and Martin clawing at John’s back.

They come at the same time, shuddering against each other, and it’s so stupidly poetic that Martin starts crying, and he’s not even sure himself whether the tears are laughter-induced or the release of the whole day’s roller coaster of emotions, or a combination of both. John stays close and wipes Martin’s tears from his face. He rests his forehead against Martin’s, and then he leans down and whispers three words into Martin’s ear. Martin squeezes John close and whispers four words back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The in-the-air hostage situation is ~~stolen~~ borrowed from an episode of the short-lived television series _Standoff_. It's [episode 2, "Circling,"](http://www.hulu.com/watch/618) and it's really quite good. (The actor (Tim DeKay) who plays Peter Burke in _White Collar_ guest stars as the hostage taker, and he's very good.)
> 
> It really is a two-hour drive from the [London Area Control Centre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Area_Control_Centre) (LACC) in Swanwick, Hampshire to 221B Baker St. (Google Maps FTW!) Civilian air traffic control for London-area airports (of which I assume Fitton is one) was transferred from [London Terminal Control Centre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Terminal_Control_Centre) (LTCC) just a few kilometers north of Heathrow Airport to the LACC in 2007.
> 
> I gave Fitton the airport code FMF (for Fitton Municipal Field) since that code doesn't seem to be in use. BCN is Barcelona, of course.


	6. parachute behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue

### 221B Baker St., London, 29th January, 8:33 p.m.

Martin moves to London because John—to no one’s surprise more than John’s own—has started consulting as a detective on his own, taking cases when clients who somehow hadn’t heard of Sherlock’s spectacular and tabloid-splashed demise show up at 221B and he finds that if he can’t stop them from telling their stories he’s already got four (or six or seven) ideas when their stories conclude, and then he can’t in good conscience just turn them away. He’s careful, much more careful than he and Sherlock ever were. He only investigates the safest things on his own; any suspicion of violence or illicit activity and he refers them to Scotland Yard. Dimmock is usually happy to pick up the cases John has passed on, still trying to prove himself and move up the ranks. John’s not in contact with Lestrade anymore. John doesn’t write up the cases he solves on his own; it feels too much like bragging, and it feels pointless. He can’t imagine who’d be interested, now that Sherlock’s gone.

Douglas uses his connections at Air England to get Martin a job there. It’s boring commuter flights to start, and he’s a First Officer instead of a Captain, but there’s a clear path to promotion and more exciting opportunities, and Martin’s happy with the work. The routine of it in contrast to the constant mayhem of MJN is a nice change, at least for a while.

Not to mention there’s also the fact that Carolyn seems to find herself in a desperate bind for a pilot about once a month, always miraculously in the middle of a string of days that Martin has free. So Martin helps out, from time to time, and he starts beating Douglas occasionally at word games ( _very_ occasionally, Douglas would point out).

Mid-afternoon on the 29th of January, Martin returns from one of these freelance trips, a two-day jaunt to Shanghai and back, and he finds John sitting in Sherlock’s chair. John opens his eyes when Martin enters the flat; his expression is difficult to read, so Martin sets his flight bag aside and goes to the kitchen for tea and an excuse to gather his thoughts. He’s just got the kettle on to boil when he remembers the date: the 29th of January, the date John met Sherlock for the first time.

“Are you all right?” Martin passes John his mug.

John lifts a hand to Martin’s face, fanning his fingers out over Martin’s cheek and jaw. He thumbs at Martin’s lower lip and pulls Martin down into a careful kiss (careful so as not to spill scalding hot tea).

“I’m good.” John says when he pulls back again.

“Good.” Martin stands awkwardly and sips at his tea. They usually ignore both the chairs, favouring the sofa instead.

“I’ll be even better if you take me to bed,” John starts, setting aside his tea, standing up, and crowding himself into Martin’s space, holding him by the hips. “Take me to bed and make love to me very, very slowly.”

“Um.”

John laughs and lifts the mug out of Martin’s hands to set it aside as well. “Come on, I’ll get you started.” John leads the way to his bedroom, pulling off his jumper and vest and tossing them on the floor.

Martin loses his stunned shyness once they’re in bed and naked, as he typically does, and he takes John’s ‘very, very slowly’ instruction very, very seriously. He starts by going down on John, and by the time he pulls his mouth away his lips feel swollen almost to twice their normal size, and John’s chest is heaving. Martin had one finger inside John’s arse already, but now he adds a second and watches as John squirms in desperation and his cock leaks steadily onto his stomach. Instead of adding a third finger, Martin rolls John over and teases John by rubbing the wet head of his own prick back and forth over John’s hole before nudging just inside. Without the usual preparation, it’s very tight, but Martin is careful and slow, just as instructed. It must take him ten minutes to seat himself fully inside John, and then he just lays himself down over top, stroking John’s sides and mouthing at his neck and only very sporadically rolling his hips in a movement so small it’s almost nothing more than a twitch.

When John’s moans beneath him morph into something better described as breathless whining, Martin rolls John back over and encourages him to hold his knees up and wide. Martin pushes back in all at once and grabs the headboard for leverage, leaning down to tease John’s mouth open and kiss him deeply.

John comes first, surprising them both by coming without a hand on his cock after Martin finds his prostate and changes his rhythm to short strokes aimed at nothing other than maximising the contact between the head of his prick and that little gland. Martin follows soon after, when John pulls his knees higher and wider and Martin can’t help but slip in deeper. He’s so deep it feels absolutely like he’s become part of John, and even after he pumps out his release with his hips pressing hard into the soft plushness of John’s arse, Martin can’t stop himself from maintaining the pressure, trying to keep himself buried there. And John, for his part, seems to understand. He’s still holding his legs up, assisting in the effort, and he noses at Martin’s face until he gets his attention for a kiss.

The breaking of the kiss is the end: John releases his legs with a groan, and Martin pulls out gingerly and flops to the side. They fall into a doze and wake in the twilight of the early evening uncomfortably sticky, and that calls for a shower, and the shower takes a bit longer than necessary because they spend so much of it pushing each other up against the tile and kissing mouths and throats and ears and stroking over bellies and nipples and between arse cheeks.

They order in from Angelo’s and split a bottle of wine, and then Mrs. Hudson walks in on them cuddled up on the sofa in their pyjamas, John lying lengthwise on it with Martin between his legs, resting his head back on John’s chest.

“Ooh, ooh,” Mrs. Hudson taps at the door. “I’ve brought tea and cake.”

It’s fairly obvious straightaway that Mrs. Hudson—undoubtedly remembering the day’s significance—hadn’t prepared herself to find them in such a state of domestic bliss, but she covers her surprise admirably well. “Don’t be rude, boys. Come over to the table and have a seat. I’ve baked a chiffon.”


End file.
